KAIKAI'S KICKER: From Northlands to Westlands, General Muhoozi tweets should get Kenyans thinking

My Kicker tonight is inspired by the blistering Twitter timeline of General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a senior member of the Ugandan military and son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. For those who may not know, General Muhoozi, a soldier by career, uses Twitter like a shooting range. And without doubt, he loves rapid fire and certainly prefers a constantly pressed trigger. In the Twitter shooting range, Kenya and Kenyans seem a favourite target of Muhoozi and the shooting gives Muhoozi and a sizeable number of Kenyans quite a kick. I took an interest on General Muhoozi’s tweets for two reasons; first to establish whether he raises any substantive issues about Kenyans and Kenya, and secondly because I consider him a consequential figure not just because he is the son of the President, but because barring miracles, and there are very few political miracles in Uganda, Muhoozi could well succeed his father Museveni as President of Uganda.

Now, let’s get to Muhoozi’s tweets: when goons descended on the Northlands last week, the Ugandan General was not amused and he fired a tweet – “my big brother’s farm was attacked by hooligans the other day. We will send the Ugandan Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) to protect him. We will beat those hooligans to a pulp.”

Moments later, Muhoozi updated that he requested Mzee, that is President Museveni, to deploy 200 UPDF soldiers with him - Muhoozi as the Officer Commanding at Northlands but Mzee refused. Then Muhoozi crowed; ‘I told him that Kenyans need a good beating. He refused.”

Now, Northlands is Kenya’s latest humiliating entry to Muhoozi’s Twitter feed and this cut quite close considering the obvious mocking of what should be considered a domestic national embarrassment that was the security breach at a property associated not with one but two former Presidents of the Republic of Kenya. I call it humiliating because Uganda really doesn’t have lessons to share on how to treat former presidents or their properties and even worse, Uganda does not even have a living former president. But Muhoozi’s offer to protect former President Uhuru Kenyatta should not just be taken for the top range mockery it is, but for the fun it is poking at the obvious lapses on the body of our statehood. Whatever your political affiliation, or even tribe as a Kenyan, Northlands was a bad show. It was clumsy, untidy, reckless and trully short-sighted. When Muhoozi proposes to deploy 200 Ugandan soldiers, it should be found embarrassing because foreign intervention is only reserved for failed states. Just imagine the sight of Ugandan soldiers in Gatong’ora ward, Ruiru constituency… shameful… on Northlands, Muhoozi got us good – but thank heavens, it was only a tweet. Just another tweet, I should say- considering his previous Twitter threat to march on Nairobi in under two weeks and set up base at Riverside or Westlands.

The ridiculous margins of Muhoozi’s tweets aside, I think the Ugandan first son should start getting Kenyans to give a thought to some of the perceptions our neighbours hold about us. Because of what they see us do, I think they consider us a powerhouse on the decline, I think they see us as increasingly weak and progressively small. I think they consider our politics and elections chaotic and unnecessarily highly inflammable. I think they consider our governance increasingly formless and disposed to domestic political trivialities. I don’t think they consider us the big picture guys of years gone by. I don’t think they consider us the regional model anymore. They think we sound, act and look small as time progresses. A few years ago in an interview, I pressed President Museveni over the brutal conduct of his security forces in the streets of Kampala.

At the time, I thought some of the images playing out on the streets of Kampala were inconceivable here in Kenya; well, until last week.

To that, and from Eastlands to Northlands, Muhoozi could well tweet, ‘tuko pamoja.’