KAIKAI’S KICKER: Yes, Mr President, protect the military…but other institutions and the Constitution too!

On my kicker tonight, President William Ruto’s call for respect of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) should constitute a much welcome note to what can be a robust and necessary discourse on the state of national institutions in Kenya today.

The President did not provide a context to his remarks about protecting KDF, and it can only be assumed that it was informed by the recent adverse comments by opposition leaders on the KDF report on the helicopter crash that killed its Chief of Defence Forces General Francis Ogolla. It can also be assumed it was a response to the recent public backlash suffered by current Chief of Defence Forces General Charles Kahariri when he waded into the politics around the ‘Ruto Must Go’ slogan.

But the assumption that one should find universally appealing for Kenyans is one of the need to preserve the integrity, dignity and reputation of the Kenyan military as an institution. Since the 2022 election debacle and the Bomas of Kenya National Security Advisory Council saga, politicians, not the public, casually dragged the name, individuals and the institution of the military into politics. Some of those moments have been so undignifying that we’d rather not revisit except to set the record straight that it is politicians and not the public or journalists that drag the military into politics.

Away from the military, the oath of office binds the President; “…obey, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of Kenya…” and to “protect, and uphold the sovereignty, integrity and dignity of the people of Kenya… so help me God.” So, the President’s duty to protect is by Constitution extremely broad. This duty extends to the institutions provided for in the Constitution of Kenya 2010. Article 206 of the Constitution for example establishes the Consolidated Fund; the account into which all money raised or received on behalf of the national government shall be paid.

It should be extremely disturbing for a majority of Kenyans to wake up to revelations that some Ksh.6 billion collected for the national government in the Electronic Travel Authorisation charged on visitors entering Kenya ended up in Swiss accounts and that onward remissions to the national government were never clear. Then comes the more troubling and deliberate culture of sidestepping the Consolidated Fund that started with the UhuRuto administration. In 2014, the UhuRuto administration borrowed about 2 billion dollars, the equivalent of Ksh.174 billion Eurobond loan. The loans landed not in the Consolidated Fund but in offshore accounts. The then Auditor General Edward Ouko had a rabbit chase of his life trying to trail the path of the loan down to the Consolidated Fund.

President Kenyatta’s Treasury officials casually claimed the money went to “budgetary support.” Last year, Kenyan taxpayers repaid the Eurobond at the whopping equivalent of Ksh.310 billion. Now, this Eurobond story is not just an infringement of the Constitution and doctrines of good governance but borders on a brazen criminal heist. On the domestic scene, media headlines continue to expose cases of financial banditry passing as acts of government. Story for another day.

Back to institutions, and away from the Consolidated Fund, the Constitution of Kenya 2010 provides for the Office of the Controller of Budget and the Office of the Auditor General. It has been heartbreaking for believers of good governance to watch those offices and roles being disregarded and their occupants berated and their reports trashed, especially by politicians and government functionaries. Then there is the judiciary…let’s not go there.

For stability and development, the Constitution contemplates the totality of public institutions working towards that common goal. That is why, for stability and development, the presidential protection ring must extend beyond the military to other institutions but principally, to the Constitution in aggregate as spelt out by the oath of office.