KDF should revise its recruitment policy

Ms. Gladys Jepkechei Tarus displays a medical report confirming that she was not pregnant. KDF should revise its recruitment policy

While the Kenya Defense Forces, KDF, received scathing attacks over its Westgate performance, something else passed unnoticed. Ms. Gladys Jepkechei Tarus attempted to join the military in vain, for the third time. Combined, these recent developments justify the need for KDF to revise its recruitment policy. 

Gladys Tarus has been attempting to join KDF since 2010. She did. Only to be ejected from the Recruit Training School RTS and sent to her parent’s Baringo Central home. Scores rubbished as unfounded claims by KDF that Gladys, failed a pregnancy test. Legislators faulted this move by KDF to terminate the dreams of Ms. Tarus. 

Undeterred, Gladys went ahead and attempted her luck with the military in 2011. She was not picked. In 2012, she tried her luck with Kenya Wildlife Service, and failed. KDF claimed that the 23-year-old Gladys did not meet the academic requirement to join the army when they dismissed her attempt on Monday, 14 October 2013. 

It does not take a pundit to wonder how in 2010, Ms. Tarus sailed all through to the RTS. Besides, the contradiction on the medical report that KDF claimed that Tarus was pregnant and several independent tests ordered by legislators was suspicious. Then in 2013, the same academic results that earned Ms. Tarus admission at the RTS soon became inadequate. 

Scores of young Kenyans go through these ordeals every time KDF runs recruitment drives. Youths who are passionate about defending their country by enlisting in the army end up disillusioned when they mysteriously miss these opportunities. Stories are told in hushed tones of how relatives of senior government and military officials easily acquire positions in KDF. 

Sons and daughters of influential people, the stories go, do not even participate in tedious field events during the recruitment drive. Instead, they appear during the final phase of the recruitment drive where selected candidates are certified to join RTS. Once there, this caliber of recruits, according to stories, is very lazy and uncooperative. Oftentimes, they sneak out of RTS, KDF. For good. 

Perhaps this hints on the lacklustre performance of KDF. After Al-Shabaab attacked Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall, KDF has been fighting intense imbroglio. KDF’s lack of strategy for combating the terrorists, looting, and possible killing of elite General Service Unit official, fly in the face of basic expectations on the military. 

The case of Gladys Tarus and KDF’s inertia explains this complacency. 

With all honesty, I am ignorant on military science. I learnt about FIBUA, military jargon for indoor fighting, not so long ago when Roy Gachuhi interviewed Lieutenant-General (rtd) Humphrey Njoroge. Nevertheless, I know everything about organizational behavior.

Passionate employees are highly productive. Having passionate employees on board requires fewer resources in management. When employers call for job seekers who can work under minimum supervision, they have in mind passionate employees. Importantly, passionate employees are innovative. 

In the military, innovation is critical. Although lower cadre soldiers are not involved in making strategic decisions, they need to be innovative. An innovative soldier stands high chances of enabling the success of the larger unit for instance during phalanx formation. Tarus exudes determination that yields and sustains this passion.  

Concentrating on endurance alone may not provide KDF with dedicated employees. Instead, going for candidates like Gladys Tarus who has towered high in temerity even when rejected thrice, can. Potential candidates chicken out when they learn that they are supposed to part with 150 000 Shillings payable to the District Officer, to secure a chance in the forces.  

Perhaps KDF recruitment policy does not give room for a candidate who does not oil the recruitment system. And threatens to embarrass the military top brass by earning the sympathy of the media, politicians and human rights defenders.  Perhaps for these reasons, Gladys Tarus will never get a chance to pursue her dream career in the military.

Nigeria’s Obasanjo urges leaders to publish books

Raila Odinga. Olusegun Obasanjo urged African leaders to emulate Odinga and publish books. Photo credit: Niaje.com

Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo today urged African leaders to consider publishing books on their experiences in power.  

 

Speaking during the launch of Flames of Freedom, Raila Odinga’s autobiography in Nairobi’s Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Obasanjo said that by chronicling their experiences while in power, leaders contribute a lot to the betterment of humanity.

“You deprive the future generation a lot when you refuse to write a book,” he said, before urging Charles Njonjo in particular to rescind his hardliner stance on writing an autobiography. 

Njonjo, Kenya’s first Attorney General, had earlier said that he had toyed with the idea of writing a book for some time, before deciding to abandon the idea altogether. 

Obasanjo, whose full names are Oluṣẹgun Mathew Okikiọla Arẹmu Ọbasanjọ, is a cherished scholar and a democracy enthusiast. A career soldier, Obasanjo was Nigeria’s military ruler between 1976 and 1979 before he became a democratically elected president between 1999 and 2007. An avid reader, Obasanjo has seven books to his name. 

He told of a story of a Nigerian Attorney General he tried persuading to write an autobiography, and how this leader kept avoiding his persuasion. One day, the government official owned that he was afraid of writing a book, for the establishment would jail him for betrayal, Obasanjo explained. 

Not even the promise by Obasanjo that the manuscript was to wait until the first African Attorney General was out of office before going to bed convinced the official to write a book, he added. At this point, the exemplary orator offered that leadership and sacrifice are inseparable. 

Obasanjo described his host as good father and husband, attributes that he said lack in most African leaders. Raila sacrificed his own life for the wellbeing of Kenya, Obasanjo said, and mentioned the promulgation of a new constitution in 2010 as the fruit of this struggle. 

Flames of Freedom, a publication of Mountain Top Publishers, is Odinga’s memoir that captures his growing up, family life, as well as business and political careers. It peaks at his political career as Kenya’s Prime Minister under President Mwai Kibaki’s helm. 

“Writing a book requires discipline, courage and integrity,” said Obasanjo, as if preempting Odinga’s experiences in writing. In 2006, through Babafemi Badejo, Odinga published Enigma in Kenyan Politics.

 

“While in prison, I used to write on exercise books,” said Odinga. “They confiscated all the exercise books when I was set free, promising to send them to me. I haven’t gotten them back up to this day,” he explained.

Speaking during the event, Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, Kenya’s Vice President during Kibaki's reign, intimated that Flames of Freedom had reinvigorated his desire to write an autobiography.

Work closely with local communities, LAPPSET leadership told

Lamu Eat MP, Ms. Shakila Abdalla. LAPPSET leaders should work with local communities

Two legislators yesterday urged the leadership of the Lamu Port and Lamu Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor project to consider working with local communities.Ms. Shakila Abdalla, M.P Lamu East, and Mr. Abdikadir Omar, M.P. Balambala, were speaking at a forum organized by the Rift Valley Institute to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the LAPPSET project.

Ms. Abdalla decried the apparent disinterest by the project leadership to address concerns of the host communities.  She cited lack of compensation of displaced families, and disengaging the local leadership in running the project as some of indicators of this ill-advised move by LAPPSET leadership.  

“Construction of the Lamu Port is depriving the people of their fishing livelihoods,” she said, and continued, “The project does not provide an access route for Lamu East people to reach Lamu West.”

While acknowledging the project’s potential for developing Northern Kenya, Mr. Omar underscored the need for the management to ensure that the project does not stall. Failure to address the emergent issues and work closely with the host communities jeopardizes the project’s success, he cautioned. 

Dr. Ekuro Aukot, a legal practitioner, echoed similar sentiments. Terming the move by the project leaders as defeatist, Aukot said that disengaging communities is against the Kenyan law. He singled out leadership and land tenure system as the greatest challenges bedeviling the LAPPSET project. 

LAPPSET project, Dr. Aukot said, could succeed in creating poverty amongst the people.  By failing to address land ownership, LAPPSET leadership is setting a precedent for conflicts and endangering of the asset, he explained. 

LAPPSET is among the projects touted to advance Kenya's social economic status by 2030. The project aims at opening up the hitherto virgin Northern Kenya and linking the country to the land locked Sudan and Ethiopia. According to Dr. Jonathan Lodompui, Assistant Director, Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat, LAPPSET is the most ambitious of the 124 Vision 2030 flagship projects.

“This project offers solutions to marginalized communities,” said Lodompui, before enlisting the components of the project to include Lamu Port, oil refinery, petro-chemical industries, a 1700-kilometer road stretch, standard gauge railway line, water and crude oil pipeline, and resort cities. “With its completion, it will take three days on a road trip from Lamu to Duala,” he offered, referring to a port town in West Africa.

Lodompui owned that it is natural for a project of the LAPPSET magnitude to face challenges, and stir emotions, before clarifying that the leadership is committed to solving any emergent concerns. But it was this lack of proactivity that concerned those in attendance. 

Calling upon LAPPSET management to rethink its strategy, Mr. Omar said that dialogue and consultations with the host communities help the team in planning. Mr. Laban Omolo, Director of Natural Resources at National Lands Commission cautioned that sidelining the host communities could cost LAPPSET the much-needed funding. 

Speaking in the same forum, LAPPSET CEO, Mr. Sylvester Kasuku dismissed claims that the project is detached from the host communities. LAPPSET is designed with a human face, he said. To underline its commitment to the community, LAPPSET has an ambitious capacity development aspect that benefits farmers, traders and the youth where the projects snakes through, Kasuku added. 

Kasuku urged for patience, saying that plans are underway to compensate those affected by the 200-metre wide LAPPSET corridor.  According to Kasuku, the LAPPSET project team is careful on preserving the historical appeal of Lamu islands, something that he said is informing the development of an organized system for people to access the islands. He reiterated that LAPPSET’s development potential goes beyond the project’s corridor.  

“Upon its completion, LAPPSET will have a 3% impact on the GDP,” he explained, pointing to a PowerPoint screen indicating that the Lamu Port alone is projected to handle 1780,000 containers annually. Asked whether the LAPPSET project could be a white elephant, cliché for a costly and useless project, Kasuku said lightly that Kenya is not home to that breed of elephants.

Unconvinced that enough ground work is in place to enable LAPPSET progress smoothly, Omar urged the secretariat to identify with the peculiar needs of the various places in the project's corridor. While the people of Lamu would be comfortable with relocation, pastoralists have different needs altogether, he added.

“I would rather you address the emerging issues now than when a bulldozer and a camel are in front of each other.”