It is not the business of soldiers to decide who their political leaders are

What you need to know:

  • The seniormost of the three sacked non-commissioned officers (NCOs) was a senior sergeant. This means he has served for at least 16 years in KDF.
  • Today, the military is highly trusted and seen by the Kenyans as an institution they care about and have a great deal of confidence in. That’s what KDF must sustain.

It is with utter dismay that I read the opinion column by Murithi Mutiga titled: “Keep politics out of the military, Mr President; we need stability.”

Mr Mutiga fundamentally committed the same crime of which he accused the President – involving the military in politics. He seems not to know how militaries are supposed to treat politicians and behave around politics.

He, like most civilians, have little or no knowledge of troops’ life and culture. He is already caught in the nostalgia of a Cord government and does not even hide that he never voted for the current KDF’s commander-in-chief.

However, one point of convergence between his opinion and mine is this: As politicians divide this country along ethnic lines, military leaders have the onerous task of keeping the military professional and apolitical in all its facets.

No nation can ever be stable if its military is not completely apolitical. This means that the military has no interest whatsoever or involvement in political affairs.

The KDF states that being apolitical is one of its core values: “The [Kenya] Defence Forces will steer clear of politics and will remain steadfastly apolitical”.

Further, the three junior officers sacked for attending a Cord rally forgot to live by one of KDF’s professional core values: “The [Kenya] Defence Forces will uphold its loyalty and commitment to the Commander-in-Chief and the people of Kenya through the chain of command.” Whether they like him or not, they have to follow his orders.

The seniormost of the three sacked non-commissioned officers (NCOs) was a senior sergeant. This means he has served for at least 16 years in KDF. He thus must have been under the command of three presidents. He must have known what being apolitical means.

STRICT SEPARATION

A military officer who expands his interests into non-military areas necessarily weakens his corporate identity, dilutes his responsibility by dividing it into both military and non-military spheres (through conflicts of interest) and unwittingly subverts his loyalty, thus lessens his expertise by diverting attention away from his stated task of defending Kenya against external threats.

The issue of the military interfering in the political process is one that has dominated the field of military sociology since the publishing of The Soldier And The State in 1957. In it, the writer argues that there exists means to ensure that the military was apolitical, and indeed it is preferable that this strict separation of civilian and military spheres be maintained.

A separation of the civil and military spheres would best serve the ends of both an obedient and strong military, and that professionalism is the key variable that determines whether a military will intervene in civilian affairs, which in turn is made up of three components; expertise, responsibility and corporate identity.

The optimal means of asserting control over the armed forces is to professionalise them and the Kenyan military is one of the most professional in Africa.

Since their conquest of the Al-Shabaab bastion of Kismayu, the national perception of the military hit an all-time high on the scale of goodwill. Even the alleged Westgate looting did not affect the esteemed stature the military command in the eyes of Kenyans.

Today, the military is highly trusted and seen by the Kenyans as an institution they care about and have a great deal of confidence in. That’s what KDF must sustain.

However, the non-partisan nature of the military doesn’t mean troops must ignore their own opinions, but rather that they better understand the proper place and time to voice them. They have a robust chain of command and frequent military barazas where they can always voice their opinions.

It is not the business of soldiers to determine who their political leaders are, it is their duty to serve and obey their leaders without question. Constitutional rights do not disavow the soldiers’ allegiance to the oath of service they took.

Even in the best democracies such as the USA, a soldier is duty-bound to be loyal to obey orders without question.

Mr Mbijiwe, is a security consultant and CEO of Eye On Security. He is a former Kenya Air Force officer. ([email protected])