Muturi: Why we must form ‘State Capture’ inquiry
Attorney-General Justin Muturi references post-election turmoil in the United States and Brazil to emphasise why it is important the truth be told on an alleged ‘coup’ plot ahead of the declaration that William Ruto had won the 2022 presidential election.
This is out of claims that top government officials had on August 15 at the Bomas of Kenya National Tallying Centre tried to pressure Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Wafula Chebukati to ‘moderate’ the election results so that Mr Raila Odinga was declared the winner, or at least given the window for a run-off against Dr Ruto.
President Ruto has highlighted the alleged plot to rob him of electoral victory as one of the key issues to be investigated when an inquiry is established to probe the ‘State Capture’ under his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta.
Key figures in the Kenya Kwanza government, including Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, are insistent that crimes allegedly committed by the Uhuru regime be probed.
Dr Ruto himself campaigned on the promise to establish an inquiry into State Capture, and during a January 4 interview with a group of television stations went ahead to give a long list of offences allegedly committed by the government he served as Deputy President for 10 years. They included the alleged plot to change the election results, which even roped in the military; extrajudicial killings by the police; arrest and prosecution of his supporters on falsified charges; tax waivers to benefit the private business; the Standard Gauge Railway and other major infrastructure contracts; and allocation of public land to individuals, including part of the stalled Galana Kulalu irrigation project.
The President, however, cautioned that a full-fledged inquiry might not be a priority right now as he had to balance other interests. “Do I sort out the economy or do I swing this big thing that will drain our energy?” he posed.
According to Mr Muturi, the government is considering a Judicial Commission of Inquiry of the type that President Kibaki established in 2003 to probe the Goldenberg scandal, but is also looking at other options. The insurrection former US President Donald Trump incited when he rejected electoral loss, culminated in an attack in the US capitol by rowdy mobs on January 6, 2021, and recent copycat attacks in Brazil, where supporters of defeated President Jair Bolsonaro last Sunday broke into the nation’s Congress, Supreme Court and Presidential Palace, sum up the danger of those in power refusing to accept electoral defeat.
While President Uhuru Kenyatta was not a contender in the elections last August, he openly backed the candidacy of opposition leader Odinga against then-Deputy President Ruto. He was the one who had the power to dispatch key government officials to the Bomas of Kenya in a futile attempt to switch or falsify the election, and therefore would be the key person in the dock in the event of an inquiry.
According to Mr Muturi, however, the issue of such an inquisition, which would seem to target Dr Ruto’s predecessor, has to be handled with caution given Kenya’s fragile democracy. The AG conceded in a chat with The Weekly Review that there is no clear roadmap on what shape such an inquiry would take, concurring with the President that there is no need to rush into anything that could be interpreted as political vendetta and which could divide the nation.
The need to expose misdeeds of the Uhuru government and punish those responsible for abuse of power, corruption and other offences therefore has to be tempered against the wider national interest and also not divert attention from the Kenya Kwanza government’s development agenda.
While Dr Ruto is careful and pragmatic on the matter of an inquiry, there are many around him, particularly the younger politicians, party activists and newly-minted government officials, who would want to throw caution to the wind and go on an all-out assault against Mr Kenyatta, the business interests of the former First Family, and top government officials in the past administration.
State Capture
DP Gachagua has been one of the loudest voices for investigations into the Uhuru regime, insisting in an Inooro TV interview last Sunday that a State Capture inquiry would lead to confiscation of wealth allegedly amassed by key figures in the past administration.
Intriguingly, however, the DP played down the establishment of a formal investigatory mechanism such as a Judicial Commission or Presidential Commission because priority was on the government agenda of lowering the cost of living. It, therefore, remained unclear how those culpable for a host of misdeeds would be identified and punished in the absence of a formal and structured investigation. He said the alleged corruption cartel comprised just “about 10 people who stole billions from the economy in manipulated deals”.
In likely reference to Kenyatta family interests, he charged that the cartels owned banks and controlled interest rates and that every public policy was designed to earn them handsome profits. He claimed that influential families were behind cartels dominant in the milk, tea and coffee sectors and were blocking reforms so that they could continue enslaving farmers, charging that they even borrowed money to pay tea bonuses from the ‘Big Man’s’ banks. “We will not pay that loan since farmers did not approve it,” he said.
“Certainly, we will cancel their ill-gotten title deeds, deals and interests,” he concluded, but did not mention that would be through government decree of a formal process. He accused the same cartels, still unnamed, of being behind police corruption and extra-judicial killings. “All those officers and their masters who murdered Kenyans ... left people orphans, widows and widowers ... we might not come after you but you will never find peace,” he said, again not stating how the culprits would be identified. It was also left unclear how they would be punished in the absence of formal investigations, prosecution and conviction.
He revealed that the four-day government retreat at the Fairmont Mt Kenya Safari Club had resolved to drop the idea of a State Capture inquiry so that the government could focus on delivery of its promises to Kenyans, again raising questions on exactly how the promise to bring to book those responsible for various crimes will be realised.
In the meantime, however, the threat of a State Capture inquiry should have many officials in the previous administration looking over their shoulders. Most concerned should be the former President, who would obviously be the first in the dock were a probe mounted into the alleged attempt to illegal-ly overturn the presidential election results.
Ruto's victory
According to Mr Chebukati’s account of the Bomas of Kenya incident, a National Security Advisory Committee delegation, comprising the Principal Administrative Secretary at the Office of the President Kennedy Kihara, Solicitor-General Kennedy Ogeto, Inspector-General of Police Hilary Mutyambai and Vice-Chief of Defence Forces Lieutenant-General Francis Omondi Ogolla, tried to pressure him to doc-tor the results and reverse the impending announcement of Ruto’s victory. He claimed that Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua had called and asked him to receive the team.
Mr Chebukati’s account in press statements and an affidavit filed in response to Mr Odinga’s Supreme Court petition challenging Dr Ruto’s electoral victory added a sensational element to the election dis-pute drama. It was disputed by Mr Kihara and Mr Kinyua as sensational and damaging allegations that cast aspersions on critical government institutions and offices.
It is, however, what Dr Ruto is using to make his case for what would have amounted to a coup against a validly-elected presidential contestant, and unprecedented use of the military in political manoeuvres.
On the Bomas of Kenya happenings, most of those involved have already left government or been eased aside from the centre of power with entry of a new regime.
However, a probe could be career-limiting for some, such as Lt-Gen Ogolla who in the normal rotation would have been well-placed to later this year succeed Gen Robert Kibochi as Chief of Defence Forces.
If there was such an attempt as described, it is highly unlikely that the delegation would have visited Mr Chebukati on such a mission without the former president’s instructions, or at least his knowledge and assent.
An inquiry into the matter would also drag in then-Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, who in the last term of the Uhuru presidency was delegated powers that were seen to eclipse Ruto’s.
The ‘Super CS’, as he became known, not only presided over the powerful security and national ad-ministration dockets, but also became a sort of prime minister in all but name as he chaired Cabinet committees to which all other ministerial colleagues reported.
He became a hate figure to Dr Ruto allies who viewed him as having usurped the DP’s powers. They also made him subject of a wide variety of allegations around corruption and misuse of power, some of which those in the new government will be keen to push.
In the former security establishment, another figure Dr Ruto loyalists would love to punish alongside Mr Matiang’i would be then-Principal Secretary for Interior Karanja Kibicho. Throughout most of the Jubilee government’s final term, the Ruto social media propaganda network led by his digital strategist Dennis Itumbi launched wave after wave of attacks on the two, accusing them of all manner of crimes and misdeeds.
Former Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti is another security operative with reason to be nervous. The President revealed during his TV interview that he had fired the DCI boss, contradicting his own earlier account on assuming office that he had accepted his resignation.
Contacted by The Weekly Review, Mr Kinoti declined any comments but affirmed that he was doing well. However, the former top crime buster surely knows that he could be a marked man, given the vehemence with which the Ruto camp accused him of targeting them with a chain of investigations and prosecutions based on falsified evidence.
Extra-judicial executions
More seriously, Mr Kinoti is now being fingered over a spate of extra-judicial executions, with Dr Ruto himself charging that a goods container installed at a Nairobi police station was used as the site for torture and murder.
Beyond security operations, an inquiry into State Capture would invariably look at alleged misuse of power to benefit private business interests.
Both Dr Ruto and Mr Gachagua have frequently referred to the merger of the Kenyatta family’s Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) and the NIC Bank to firm the NCBA Bank. The merger benefited from a controversial waiver of over Sh300 million in taxes, which could put then-Treasury CS Ukur Yattani on the spot.
Mr Gachagua, who has been put in charge of agriculture reforms, has since the campaign period exhibited an obsessive interest in Kenyatta family’s dominance of the dairy industry through the Brookside brand that has bought out all major rivals. Although he had never provided any evidence, he has often charged that cartels linked to the former First Family have used political clout to entrench themselves in various agricultural sectors including dairy, coffee and tea.
His promise last week to seize assets he claimed were proceeds of corruption could send shivers across various sectors, but he might also be on slippery ground unless any such moves were the outcome of judicial or other formal processes rather than declarations at political rallies.
The full version of this article and more available in the current edition of the Weekly Review BY DAILY NATION
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