Faustian Pacts.

Sometimes Ahmednasir Abdullahi goes too far. But not on Sunday 30 November. He was, by his rather grandiose standards, very restrained. Mr Abdullahi states, "The President was simply making a very passionate and personal confession. Reality has finally downed on him. He finally realised despite his bravado and penchant for military uniforms that his government is vulnerable. Powerless. Weak." That is the most restrained assessment by Mr Ahmednasir yet of any public figure, including President Kenyatta. Devoid of hyperbole, it cuts to the core of the presidency and lays it bare for all to see.

The national security apparatus is a complex machine, with may moving parts and few of them interlocking properly. Every time Kenyans are murdered in their dozens, it is likely that a gear lost a cog or a wheel came off the machine. Mr Kenyatta sits at the head of the national security table. He is to be supported in his role by the Chief of Defence Forces and his service commanders, the Director of National Intelligence, the Inspector-General of Police, the Director of Criminal Intelligence, the Director of Immigration,  the Cabinet Secretaries (and their principals) of the Interior and Defence and, of course, the people. But the people don't have a seat at the table, they don't have access to the reports of the National Intelligence Service, Military Intelligence or the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

The national security environment has benefitted over the years from links with the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard), the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, Israel's Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad) and South Africa's National Intelligence Service. These links have provided training and intelligence on diverse subjects over the years. But the national security environment has been shaken up by the Constitution; autonomy and independence are emphasised; co-operation and co-ordination are not. Silo-based thinking defines the national security environment, going by the mutterings reported as facts in the national press. Every player in the sector has his turf (they are all men, remember?) and he will stick a stiletto or ten in your back if you even contemplate stepping onto his turf.

It is why, Military Intelligence continues to hold sway in Somalia, while the NIS does what it's original mandate was when it was known as Special Branch, that is, keep tabs on local political malcontents. It is why the National Police Service is like an armed mutiny because the original regular police consider the administration police to be country yokels with little to recommend them. It is why the most mysterious security official in Kenya happens to be the one supposed to solve murders, trace the origins of firearms and explosives, and arrest conspirators to a terrorist-related attack. (If you have seen the Director of Criminal Intelligence do any or all of these, you must the lucky person who has spotted unicorns in the night sky.)

What this situation has brought home to the President, according to Mr Abdullahi, is the vulnerability, powerlessness and weakness of his national security environment. That realisation has led him to the only rational conclusion: Kenyans must be prepared to bear the burden of securing their safety without the training, arms, intelligence or co-ordination required to do. Kenyans should bear the burden of intercepting communications between the perpetrators of attacks such as the one in Mandera and forestalling the fruition of those plans. Kenyans must gather intelligence on their own regarding the proclivities of all their relatives and install home-monitoring systems in order to keep their children safe from predators, human or otherwise.

What Mr Kenyatta may not remember is that Kenyans have been doing this since the country went o shit in the aftermath of the 1988 KANU party elections. Between 1988 and 1993, there was a spike in "mob justice", the civilian version of "extrajudicial killings." "Necklacing" and stoning were the order of the day. Self-help groups - vigilantes, if you must - came up to "protect our people." These became the Mungiki, Chinkororo, Kamjesh, Jeshi la Mzee, Baghdad Boys, Forty Brothers and a host of others. They have gotten out of hand, by the by. The President has verbalised our options, which aren't really options so much as Faustian Pacts. Like I said, Mr Abdullahi was pretty restrained last Sunday.