Tone-Deaf.

President Uhuru Kenyatta's minders should have built an exact replica of the ceremonial Land Rover for the Madaraka Day parade, even if it was going to be borne by a Toyota Land Cruiser. They definitely should have kept the massive, black armoured truck hidden away, preferably in State House. The message delivered on the fifty-first Madaraka Day was of a President who is no longer confident in the skills, talents, commitment or capability of his National Police Service, National Intelligence Service or Defence Forces. Regardless of what he said in his address, what the people saw was a President cowering behind a massive bullet-resistant wall and hedging his bets by arranging for a special armoured truck to whisk to safety because his police, army and intelligence agencies have completely failed to reassure him and the people that Kenya can win the war on terror.

Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. He did not die. Nor did the most protected institution in the history of the world change the manner in which the principal was protected. Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya, Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces, has never been shot. (Maybe he has been shot at; we may never find out.) The tone-deaf manner in which his security minders behave continues to create the wrong impression about the nature of his government. While Barack Obama travels in a secure vehicle nick-named The Beast, this must be seen in context; he is the most hated, domestically and overseas, US President in the history of the institution. While Uhuru might have passionate foes here at home, it is ridiculous to suggest that they are so well organised or so determined to cause him grievous harm that he will not travel to a public event to mark a day ripe with historical significance unless he is swaddled in a security blanket to rival that of the US President.

The image portrayed, sadly, is reminiscent of the Stalinist Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the People's Republic of China or any of the -stans that contribute so much to the degeneration of the term "democracy" - Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan - where perfidious and murderous regimes expend billions of tax-dollars every year to keep perfidious and murderous heads of state from being murdered in turn by their rivals - or their people.

We may bitch about it, but the Government of Kenya is no longer the autocratic monster we came to revile during the forty-year KANU reign. The relatively peaceful transition to the NARC government in 2002 was a signal that the people, bar one or two unresolved historical injustices, were willing to move forward. Not even the barbarisms perpetrated in 2007/2008 have rolled back the desire of the peoples of Kenya to live together as one. Even when Raila Odinga's disciples screamed "Uhuru must go!" on the 31st of May, there was no serious belief that their regime-change chants would actually receive popular endorsement. Kenya, regardless of the al Shabaab bombs, grenade attacks and shootings, is determined to make its government a beacon of hope surrounded by modern-day Stalins in the East African region.

President Kenyatta must remind himself, if he doesn't do so already, that he is the President, the Commander-in-Chief, the head of State, the head of government. Everything he does or says sends a signal to his government, whether it is in the National or County Executives, Parliament or the Judiciary. Therefore, he must display greater confidence in his government, its institutions and its servants. Images of him cowering behind bullet-resistant glass or armoured trucks display no confidence. They send the wrong message. If he doesn't change, every thiefdom in Kenya will allocate an ever greater share of county resources to "security" and little to public safety.