There was tension in the air following the brutal murder of Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko. President Daniel arap Moi’s government was widely viewed by an angry public as responsible for the killing.
Government spin doctors then started airing the bizarre theory that Dr Ouko had shot himself in the head and set his body ablaze. They also floated the ‘Leopard Man’ theory, suggesting that the Cabinet minister had been killed by government foes so that it would take the blame. What followed was arrests of a large number of senior politicians who had parted way with the Moi regime but they were all eventually set free because there was really no reason to arraign them in court.
That was 1990. We have now been reminded of the excesses of the Moi era by what seems like a regression into dictatorship, police brutality and utter contempt for the rule of law. What seems like a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy, disproportionate use of force and a wave of arrests in efforts to contain the demonstrations called by opposition leader Raila Odinga’s Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition is redolent of the one-party dictatorship.
But what really sends the chilling message of a return to Moism was the statement put out last Friday by Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki . He talked of investigations on residences in the Karen suburb where weapons were allegedly stored, including licensed firearms that were believed to have been made available for use during the demos.
Prof Kindiki did not give more details other than that a suspect who also had with them documents on disbursement of some Sh42 million supposedly used to fuel the protests had been arrested. He did not have to say more, but it was easy to put two and two together; added to the fact the regime propagandists were at the same time unleashed to spew out the nonsense that could not come from an official statement.
President William Ruto and his mouthpieces have in recent days escalated their attacks on Mr Kenyatta, whom they accuse of funding the Azimio demonstrations. The narrative being spun is supposed to provide the proof that has been lacking.
If, indeed, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga have been providing guns, pangas, swords and rungus to be used in violent demos, as well as cash and drugs such as bhang and cocaine, then, surely, it is the two men who should be arrested and charged rather than their minions. As it is, it looks like they will be tried in absentia in proceedings that could mirror the infamous Mwakenya trials of the Moi dictatorship.
And there is another interesting element to the whole scenario. It has been widely reported that most of the 30 or so persons killed during the demos died of gunshot injuries, presumably shot by police. But now, in the face of widespread criticism over indiscriminate use of lethal force, the Deep State machinery seems to be crafting a new tale: That the shootings were actually perpetrated by the protest organisers to make the government look bad.
The Leopard Man theory all over again! To borrow and adapt to this situation one of the most famous sayings from President Mwai Kibaki, even “lying requires some intelligence”.
We don’t know long how long it will be before the Nyayo House torture chambers are revived and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the National Intelligence Service again become tools of the political establishment adept at planting evidence and extracting forced confessions.
But we can very clearly see a return of police units in mufti abducting government critics and illegally holding them incommunicado or refusing to free those who end up in court and mange to secure release on bail.
We are seeing the spectre of secret trials in police officers beating up and ejecting journalists from court precincts. And in much of Nyanza, and parts of Nairobi, we have seen terrible violence inflicted on citizens under the guise of combating violent protesters. The police were not to arrest anyone or enforce the peace but maim and kill.
There is no justification for violent protests. But there is even less justification for police to break the law under the pretext of enforcing the law. The creeping return of dictatorship must be resisted at all costs.
