Kenya Defence Forces’ combat helicopters during Operation Linda Nchi. (left) CFD General Francis Ogolla who died in a chopper crash on April 18, 2024.
The speculation on the cause of the accident that killed Chief of Defence Forces Gen Francis Ogolla on April 18 is to be expected given Kenya’s history of political killings, the toxic politics and a general distrust of government and politicians in general.
For decades, the political class has enjoyed near total impunity: One could rob the country and cart away money in sacks at will, Tom could be shot in the streets in broad daylight, JM Kariuki could be killed and dumped in a thicket, hundreds of university students and intellectuals could be rounded up and brutalised by the intelligence services without any inconvenience at all to the politicians who ordered it. One wonders if it would be possible to go round bumping off senior generals without consequence of some sort.
This debate needs to take place in the context of the increasingly frightful air safety record of the Kenyan military, the heavy load placed on the services to airlift politicians and their wash-wash groupies to cattle dip anniversaries and birthday parties, corruption in military procurement and the slim resources available to the Kenya Air Force to modernise and maintain its fleet, train and maintain tip-top readiness of its men and women in arms.
The assassination discourse surrounding this tragedy rides on three motive narratives, popularised mainly in the blogs of X and by opposition politicians. The first is straightforward: Revenge because on August 15, 2022, he visited the presidential tallying centre at Bomas of Kenya with the intention to “overturn my victory”, as President William Ruto phrases it in a viral video. What exactly did Gen Ogolla’s Bomas visit achieve?
The second narrative is rooted in ethnicity and President Ruto’s presumed preference for his tribal and political kindred in appointments to senior national responsibilities, irrespective of qualification – or lack thereof – or character. The belief is that if you shot a man in the head on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, to paraphrase Former US President and current Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, provided you are from his Rift Valley backyard or are his ardent political supporter, Dr Ruto would still appoint you to key State jobs.
The third is woollier and it is the assumption that Gen Ogolla, being from Nyanza like the junior officers and enlisted men of the Kenya Air Force who, in a Quixotic move, allegedly conspired with opposition leader Raila Odinga to kick then-President Daniel Arap Moi’s dictatorial butt out of town in 1982, presented a coup risk to the Kenya Kwanza regime and therefore had to be “taken out” in a tried and tested fashion that has iron-clad deniability.
Kenyans are good Africans. In Africa, no one dies a simple, innocent death. If you are struck by lightning, someone must have contracted a witchdoctor to look into your case. If you die of illness, you must have been poisoned. These suspicions are not entirely without some fragments of truth, mind you. Kenya is not a bad place to commit homicide; chances are you could get away with it. A large percentage of deaths are related to business rivalries, jealousies or domestic disagreements. Last year, the Kikuyu Council of Elders asked women to stop discussing methods of bumping off their husbands during chama meetings. Apparently, rather than going through a messy, public divorce to get rid of an insufferably abusive and unfaithful husband – and to ease the slide into inheriting his property – many a man’s death is associated with their wives slipping iron filings into their porridge.
Favourite theory
Only a proper investigation can determine definitively the cause of the accident and death of 11 military personnel and the loss of a Sh1.8 billion aircraft. While it might not satisfy the most passionate believers of the assassination theory, who will claim the investigation is cooked if the outcome does not support their favourite theory, for the more rational public, it will provide the truth.
From a logical perspective, the assassination theory looks good from afar, it’s juicy political fare and it is in keeping with the general fear of Dr Ruto by many of his political enemies, but up close, it doesn’t look so good. It’s politically dumb.
Conventional wisdom is that Dr Ruto is unlikely to go into the re-election fight in 2027 with his current coalition and that he could jettison Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, a loquacious demagogue, for a less controversial, more amenable, less independently electable candidate, say Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi. Mr Mudavadi is Mr Safe Hands: loyal, reliable and unthreatening. It would be unthinkable for him to rebel against his boss and run against him in an election. And even if he were to do so, he would not have a snowball’s chance in hell of defeating him.
Roughly hewn, networked both in the street and among the tycoons of his homeland, a good fundraiser and rabble-rouser, Mr Gachagua might be a village bumpkin but he is a slightly different kettle of mountain trout. One thing former President Uhuru’s experience with President Ruto has taught Kenyan politicians and observers is that political partnerships only work with a weak deputy. Strong, independent deputies hem in the principal, limit his powers and freedom of action.
He or she has to tip-toe around them or risk being destabilised, effectively reducing them to sub-ordinates in their own regime. It is good and photogenic to have a buddy deputy, so long as you do not breed a snake in your own rafters. After re-election of the Kenyatta regime in 2017, Dr Ruto had built such a formidable political following that Mr Kenyatta was in effect his political subordinate. The former President saved himself by doing a deal with Mr Odinga and grinding Dr Ruto to a corner.
It is unlikely that the Rift Valley power elite is anxious to mentor another Kikuyu President or hand power back to Central. The assumption, right or wrong, is that the President will likely give Mr Gachagua and his Mt Kenya constituency the boot and position himself to inherit Mr Odinga’s Luo-Nyanza, Western and Coast constituencies whose votes would tide him over to victory – or put him within a comfortable rigging margin – even without Kikuyu backing.
Is this possible? Absolutely. If Mr Odinga said Ruto Tosha, Nyanza, most of Western and Coast would fall in line. In 2017, Mr Kenyatta was the most hated political figure in the street in Nyanza. His name was spat out as an insult: “Ohuru”. From the day he appeared on the steps of Harambee House and shook hands with Mr Odinga, there was a sea-change of emotion. “Ohuru is not the enemy. Ruto is the enemy,” became the refrain, often uttered with a sly grin. Mr Odinga does not have permanent enemies in politics, neither do his followers.
Therefore, assassinating the first Luo four-star general to command the Kenyan military is hardly the best way to endear oneself to Mr Odinga or the constituency behind him.
US donation
Anyone with an interest in influencing and moderating the behaviour of human beings knows that sometimes inaction is agency: There is no point expending political or any other capital on a matter where the desired outcome is a foregone conclusion. It is far much better to conserve resources, sit back and await the inevitable. Call it the Termite Strategy, to give political consultants a new phrase to dazzle politicians. Rather than toiling in the hot sun to bring down an old hut, it makes a lot more sense to sit in the shade, sip beer and let the termites get on with it. Gen Ogolla was up for retirement in April next year.
The President was already firmly in the saddle as Commander-in-Chief, having brutally cut out the generals from the previous government by retiring them and posting them to the furthest corners of the globe and having in charge generals of his choice. He could steal Mr Odinga’s voters and fix the General by smiling broadly and praising the retiring soldier to the rafters. The Bell Huey II helicopter, the troop carrier that Gen Ogolla died in, comes from a wide range of civilian and military choppers manufactured by Bell Helicopters since 1956 and includes utility and attack helicopters, such as the rather dramatically named Cobra and Venom attack helicopters.
The Huey acquired a heroic image from Vietnam war movies such as Rambo, always flying into the scene at the most opportune moment, with the darkening horizon in the background, to rain hell on the Viet Cong.
Military aircraft is generally not engineered for longevity, according to the public advice of one British operator of such aircraft. In online debate, Vietnam era pilots and mechanics now concede that their beloved chopper, with its “flight-critical single components” was not engineered for safety: One jet engine, one transmission, single gearboxes to the tail rotor, one hydraulic system.
“One enemy round in the wrong place could bring you down, and crashed Hueys would often burn or explode,” wrote Tom Lynch, a retired maintenance test pilot. “Modern helicopters like the Black Hawk or the Apache have multiple redundant systems, making them far tougher, safer, and more effective.”
In 2016, the US donated refurbished 12 Hueys, type UH-1H Huey, also known as Huey II, to Kenya under the Excess Defense Articles programme. Then-US Ambassador Robert Godec handed over the first six to the Defence Cabinet Secretary at the time, Ms Rachael Omamo, in an event at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki. The final two were delivered to the Kenya Air Force on 19 July, 2017. The donation was said to be worth Sh11 billion.
Between 1990 and 1995, the United States transferred more than $7 billion worth of excess military equipment worldwide – ranging from rations and uniforms to vehicles, aircraft, and ships - most of it to developing countries. While KDF generally has good pilots and mechanics, it’s safety record is getting worse: This is the third Huey it has lost in six years. On June 18, 2018, a Huey, serial KAF-1503, crashed in Boni forest and was written off just two years after being delivered from the US. The accident was said to have been caused by a technical fault. And on September 19, 2023 at least eight Kenya Defence Forces personnel died when their Kenya Air Force Huey crashed in in the same forest in Lamu County, while on night patrol. The exact cause of these two accidents are still unknown.
While it may take months or even years to know what happened in the final minutes of the chopper that was carrying General Ogolla, a number of witnesses told the media that the chopper was producing an unusually loud sound and that its blades were not rotating as it went down. “We were doing our work in the field at around lunchtime. The plane just came like this”, indicating approaching scene “when we checked, the propeller was not rotating. When I thought it was going down, it was falling, it just came straight and fell and lay down there,” said one witness.
“It was flying very low. That is when we realised something was wrong,” said another witness.
Certain types of UH-IH are subject of an airworthiness directive by the US Federal Aviation Authority and a safety advisory notice by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).
The FAA’s January 20, 2022, directive requires operators of a specific category of UH-1H fitted with a KAflex main driveshaft whose part numbers are given to ground the aircraft and replace or overhaul the driveshaft if it has accumulated 5,000 hours or more of service. The directive also requires continuous inspection of the shaft.
On June 17, 2022, ATSB advised UH-1H operators to inspect the helicopter’ ‘KAflex’ driveshaft. This followed a fatal crash in February 2022. In its preliminary report, the bureau said inspection of the wreckage showed that the helicopter’s main driveshaft had failed and that there was “evidence of severe frictional and wear damage to one portion of the shaft”.
The ATSB’s warning came after investigations into a number of Huey helicopter crashes in Australia revealed that their pilots were unable to enter the choppers into auto rotation due to sudden loss of main rotor speed after a KAflex drive shaft failure.
The FAA estimated the cost of replacing the driveshaft is $54,000 if new, or $38,000 for one that has been overhauled. While the Hueys are good aircraft, they require rigorous and reasonably expensive maintenance to operate safely.
Military Africa, a defence magazine, opines that the frequent crashes involving military aircraft – there have been five in the last 12 months – shows that the Kenya Air Force is stretched maintaining aircraft from different suppliers and needs more money to improve safety and strengthen its effectiveness.
“The Kenyan Air Force, now facing the task of modernising its ageing helicopter fleet, must navigate the complexities of maintenance and operational readiness. The fleet, consisting of various models like Pumas, Mi-17s, Huey UH-1Hs, and others, represents the diverse challenges of keeping a multi-sourced military aviation wing aloft,” says Military Africa.
