Open Letter to My President, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta

Copied to you, Honorable WanaKijiji.
Sir,
Our country is in a crisis. As ordinary citizens, we are worried. We don’t know what exactly is happening. We don’t know what is coming our way. Unlike you, we don’t receive intelligence reports. Here are my observations.

  1. I am concerned as to whether we are working with the right assumptions, as we go into the enforced elections on the 26th of October.

  2. The 2007 crisis was caused by wrong assumptions. It was assumed that if there was to be trouble, it would be confined to Luo Nyanza. Therefore tons of police officers were sent there, with express orders to terrorize those people. As it turned out, Luo Nyanza was not even the epicenter of the violence. Most of the violence took place elsewhere, in the Rift Valley.

  3. Therefore, as we approach enforced elections, we have to be careful, lest there be another epicenter elsewhere. Ruto’s role, as potential warlord in ODM, was taken over by Joho, whom some people suspect is a covert Kenyatta family agent, just like Ruto in 2007.

  4. I really hope that you won’t get innocent people killed. It used to be that the tree of freedom would have to be watered with people’s blood. But another breed of the tree was developed. This one doesn’t have to be watered with blood. Therefore you shouldn’t get people killed for nothing. You could have protected the Kenyatta royal system without getting so many people killed in 2007/2008.

  5. We are also working with the assumption that Raila is weak. That he is broke, as the economist put it. But
    what if we are wrong? He may be broke, but he can be funded when a crisis arises. He has some international connections that are capable of getting things done. I know that yours is one of the bloodlines that rule the world. But your friends could betray you.

  6. Kenya also has many enemies, who can do it. There are people, all around us, who would want Kenya to have serious conflict. This would make Kenya less competitive. What would have come to Kenya would then go to those enemy countries. The tourists. The investors. The works.

  7. All it would take is for a container of arms to be covertly delivered to these people, and they can wreck havoc as, for instance, they seek to secede.

  8. The same people who are urging you to be belligerent are the same people who may be waiting to fund Raila’s people, to see chaos in Kenya. The enemies may actually be within your court. Working through “advisors”. They may be giving you faulty intelligence. They may tell you that you are on firm ground, when you aren’t.

  9. The fact that your election was nullified, and the intelligence couldn’t tell you in advance in good time, should serve as a warning shot. It should tell you just how badly inflitrated your government has gotten, right up to your inner sanctum.

  10. They tell you that the state is very powerful. That may very well be the case, but you should avoid a situation where the state goes into open conflict with the people. Where you have one half the nation going in one direction (the direction of voting. And the other half going the other direction (the direction of abstaining). This is serious.

  11. Open conflict between the people and the state is not something you should desire, as the King of Kenya. It is always ugly. In that state, the power of the state would be tested. And it may fail. Our military is, I think, just about 30,000 people strong? And you can’t be sure of the loyalty of the entire lot. For if it seems as if you are carrying out a pogrom against one community, officers from that community may decide to defend their own. That alongside other ally communities in the army. The same can happen with the police.

  12. Even without a disintegration of the army, that army is not particularly strong. There has always been fear that it could overthrow the government, if it was strengthened. So you don’t have a strong army to fall back on, like El Sisi in Egypt.

  13. As for the police, they can’t possibly handle something like urban guerrila stuff.

  14. The tribal militias are of dubious value, other than defense of community interests.

  15. Therefore the picture in an open conflict doesn’t look pretty. In an open conflict, the only way we can win is by carrying out psy-ops. But these are of limited value in an all out conflict.

  16. I am concerned that you may be getting the wrong advice. From people like Murathe and Ruto, who tell you that you should be a tin-pot dictator. And that you should use the chaos on 26th as the “launch pad” for a dictatorial government of terror. An open dictatorship. That is the wrong advice.

  17. The current system is better. Where the people at least have an illusion of power. They therefore help you in running the nation. In an open dictatorship, far from helping you in running the nation, the people will be trying to sabotage you. That is hard to deal with, especially in a nation as diverse as Kenya.

  18. You have a lot to lose, if Kenya goes haywire. Someone like Murathe has nothing to lose. Thtat is hardly the kind of person you should be getting advice from. Wasn’t he declared bankrupt at some point? What does that tell you about his level of prudence?

  19. Someone like Ruto wouldn’t mind, in my view, if there was violence in Kenya. He is a Kalenjin. He was blackmailed, to be in the position he is in now. If there was violence, it would give a pretext to chase away the Kikuyus who are in Rift valley. As a Kalenjin, for Ruto, that ambition (to chase away the Kikuyus who are in the Rift Valley) is very important. It is probably more important to him than the presidency. That is what I think.

  20. So he wouldn’t mind seeing Kenya in chaos, if it gives him the pretext for carrying out that ambition, and that is why he is egging you on.

  21. As for Murathe and his ilk, they want to benefit personally from your rule. They want to take advantage of you. The current system doesn’t allow them to do so. Under the current system, they can’t just go to someone’s plot, kick him out, and take over the plot. They would want a system that allows them to do so. That can only happen in an open dictatorship. And that is why they are egging you on, to create a dictatorship, so that they embark on a looting spree.

  22. But that would mess your legacy. And as a member of a royal family, you are supposed to have a long term perspective. You know that if you set up such a dictatorship, it will cause problems in the long run.

  23. Look, your father, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was misadvised to sent Kikuyus to the Rift Valley. Because of that, the Kalenjins now have something they can use to hold us to ransom. You shouldn’t repeat similar mistakes.

  24. You therefore have to understand that many of the characters in this plot have nothing to lose. Raila and Ruto, for instance, have very little to lose. You on the other hand, have much to lose. Your family is closely intertwinned with this nation’s history. You shouldn’t allow it to disintegrate.

  25. Further, if you push through an election that has a whiff of illegitimacy, you will be held hostage. You will be held hostage by the security apparatus. You will owe your power not to the people, but to the security apparatus. You will become like Allasaine Ouattara. He ‘won’ through such an election. Now he is sustained in power by the security apparatus. So he has to give them whatever they ask for. You have heard of the Ivory Coast soldiers in Bouake mutinying every once in a while, and asking their president for tens of thousands of dollars. He has to give in every time. He owes his power to them, having gotten his second term through an election that had a whiff of illegitimacy.

  26. Don’t let anyone advise you to hide behind constitutionalism. As per the constitution, we were supposed to go for the first elections in August 2012. Because you weren’t ready, you organized for a court to find some technicality to postpone the elections. You can do so even now. The few billions we have paid to Al-Ghurair and OT Morpho is not worth losing a nation over.

  27. Postponing the election would give Raila the impression that he has won. That is okay. It is just an impression. You shouldn’t get into a contest with Raila as to who is more powerful. It is a settled question. The Kenyatta family is the royal family of Kenya. No question about that. Give Raila an illusion, if that is what it takes to move this nation forward.

  28. There is this desire to hold the election on 26th, and simply get over with it so that "businesses can stop sufferring’'. But surely, we know that if we go ahead with elections, we won’t get over with it. There will be supreme court cases. There will be demonstrations. There may even be seccession attempts.

  29. Note that here we are talking about secession attempts by mainstream figures. Not peripheral figures, as was the case with MRC and Shifta. They may not succeed. But they can den’t nation’s business attractiveness greatly.

  30. A nation that is going through secession shenanigans is hardly the best place to invest. This is why Total had to pass their pipeline from Hoima in Uganda through Tanzania. It would surely have been a key project for us.

  31. These things would destablize the nation more than just waiting for 90 more days to hold an election that has a semblance of fairness to all parties.

  32. It is better to have 90 more days of politicking, than to end up with 4 or more years of instability.

  33. Raila may not have capacity to cause real violence. But he has capacity to create an impression of chaos. The images of rioting crowds on international TV is what it takes to scare away investors and tourists.

  34. If you decide to declare a state of emergency, the impact is the same. Productivity goes down. Investors and tourists are scared away. Who wants to tour a nation that is under state of emergency? Who wants to invest in a nation that is under state of emergency?

  35. Look at what the shenanigans in Ethiopia’s Oromia region have done to that nation’s trajectory. To what end?

  36. We may not want to admit it, but Raila has some leverage over us. In a power contest, we will be beat him. But we will also be left with injuries that may affect us for the remainder of our life.

  37. You can’t handle Raila the way Mzee used to handle Jaramogi. There was a blunder, where Raila was allowed to develop a power base.

  38. After Mzee’s demise, Moi took over. Moi created a power base. Raila inherited the same.

  39. Therefore, Raila is not an individual. Raila is an institutution. He has millions of followers who have to be taken into consideration. Please, let’s not go into denial about this.

  40. Nobody doubts that you are a man. Nobody doubts that you are more powerful than Raila. On paper, you may be president. But in reality, you are more of a King, thanks to the covert structures put in place by the Kenyatta family.

  41. Therefore you don’t have to demonstrate who between you and Raila is a man. You are the main man. As your subjects, we know that. Don’t kills us. We know that you are the king of Kenya.

  42. As such, you can give a few concessions, to maintain the long-term genuine peace in Kenya. And to maintain the right balance of governance we have arrived at.

  43. Don’t listen to the people who tell you that we need more dictatorship in Kenya. We have the right balance of government firmness and democracy in Kenya. Don’t upset that balance.

  44. If you decide to go for open dictatorship, that will have consequences. Just ask your friend, Fatah el Sisi about the challenges he is having, running an open dictatorship in Egypt. Just ask Kagame the challenges he is having, running an open dictatorship in Rwanda. Having to be woken up at night to go and supervise executions. Having to micro-manage everything. It is not worthwhile.

  45. Some people admire Rwanda. Those are the people who don’t really know Rwanda. I had a chance to live in Rwanda for some time, operating as an ordinary personal in the ordinary neighborhoods. I then got to see the levels of hostility and bad blood that exist in that country.

  46. That is surely not the Kenya you want for your people. A Kenya where the Kikuyu people take the place of the Tutsi people. And where the rest of the communities coalesce, to act as the Hutu. It is a wrong way to live. It creates an illusion of development. But I can tell you, there is no real development in Rwanda, especially in the places where ordinary Rwandans live.

  47. The balance we have, between democracy and government firmness, is just right. If you empower the people too much (as some elements in the opposition would want), you end up in a situation where people would be oppressing one another.

  48. And if iyou empower the government too much, as Murathe and co want you to, the government will start oppressing people. The officers will do it in your name. And this will cause resentment among the people. The people may then, in the future, (genuinely rise against the government.

  49. Why is it that Raila is having difficulties sustaining his protests? Why is it that they are having to pay the protestors? It is because the people have nothing against the government.

  50. But if you opt for the path of repression, as you are being advised, the people will have a reason to rise against the government in the future. And when that hapens, you may not be able to contain them.

  51. How many Kingdoms have fallen on these accounts? Isn’t Sudan a reasonably powerful state? Did it not have to cede its territory (South Sudan) when push came to shove? Is Ethiopia not a reasonably powerful state? Did it not have to cede its territory (Eritrea) when push came to shove? And don’t we know the story about the Balkan states?

  52. Leadership, Sir, is not just about power. It is also about legitimacy. That is why your Old Man, and Moi always tried to at least legitimize themselves in the entire nation through Kanu delegates conferences. That is why they tried to create genuine Kingpins throughout the entire nation. Legitimacy is so critical. Ignore the people who are trying to tell you otherwise.

  53. Some people will tell you that compromising is delaying the inevitable. Procrastinating the confrontation that will have to be there. But that is the wrong perspective. The confrontation should be delayed as long as possible. It is not pretty. It is ugly. It should be avoided. Perhaps if we delay it for long enough, and invest in the creation of credible kingpins in other regions, the confrontation won’t have to take place.

  54. Raila is old and almost retiring. If we made an effort to genuinely address some of the issues he raises on behalf the people who follow him, the confrontation wouldn’t have to take place. It is just a question of ensuring that the tenders are shared out in such a way that the elites of all communities get something. And then encouraging them to invest whatever they get in their regions. With proper intelligence, we wouldn’t have to worry that the resources acquired that way would fund seccessions and other such subversions. We can create systems for creating loyalty among the elites of the various communities.

  55. A little compromise wouldn’t make you weak. We have more to lose.

If it produces fire, it must tend the fire, the night arrow is reversed on the same path

Acknowledge the source

siwezi na siwezi soma,rwnebpe

Bartender, this son of the soil is cut off!

are you …er…mixed?

26th tuko kwa debe RWNEBP

55 points kuomba nusu mkate. Potelea mbali na hii chieth request. Tukutane kwa debe

I have not read but does Uhuru read all this crap? NOPE…The biggest kichapo one can dish back to a hater is not read. Trust me. It feels good.

Is he even reading KTALK? Wacha nichekele mafala

I didn’t read
I am just waiting for the 26th when his disciples will brave long queues to watch the Titanic sinking. I will have my feet up following the progress on TV.
One week later their votes will count for nothing and a new election date sometimes next year will be set.
I will wait for my leader to inform me whether to participate in the 2018 election or not.
This will get interesting.

I have read about half of what you have written. There are very many wrong assumptions in your article, but for the sake of brevity, I will not reply per every point you have raised, instead I will give a summary.

In Kenya, if you want to know whether the country is stable or not, just look at the Rift Valley. If the Rift Valley is calm, then the country is calm. Anything else can very easily be controlled by use of the security services.