I Am Not Wadi.

While I was away reacquainting myself with the rolling hills - and plains - of Kilome, a twitterati called Lieutenant Wadi called the President and Commander-in-Chief a Very Bad Word. In what must be the swiftest investigation-arrest-prosecution-conviction-sentencing sequence since the middle of the KANU Dark Ages, Lieutenant Wadi found himself contemplating the enjoyable company of real gangsters with several notches on their belts for the next two years. Then the President and Commander-in-Chief assented to the Security Laws (Amendment) Act, 2014, and drove the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy absolutely round the bend.

I don't think the President and Commander-in-Chief has a Thin Skin; after all, when he was trying out his Commander-in-Chief's/Field Marshal's jungle fatigues, he had on a pair of desert camouflage combat boots. His skin, from that martial sartorial faux pas, is as thick as that of a rhino. I do, however, think that in his corner he has men and women who are prepared to flay themselves in order to detect the slightest pin-prick directed at the President and Commander-in-Chief's reputation.

These are the characters who must have set in motion the sequence of events that led to an obscure university student being man-hunted by a police contingent that would have done Feisal Ali proud had it been sent after him and his poaching hands. Do you get an inkling of the man-hours and public finances spent tracking down a university student of no consequence, arranging for his transportation to Nairobi, and his prosecution, all because he had the benefit of Kenya's public university system that seems to churn out ranks after ranks of barely-lettered graduates year in, year out? It is absurd.

Feisal Ali, against whom an International Criminal Police Organisation Red Corner Notice had been issued, was responsible for the poaching of hundreds of elephants in Kenya. The value of the tusks aloe was estimated in the tens of millions of shillings. The value to our national heritage and tourism-dollars bottom-line was inestimable. Yet, powers-that-be saw no irony n spending a few millions in man hours and money to track down an incredibly unintelligent student who was being mean to the Head of State and Government!

Our public service's second-most important function is to keep egg off the President's face - never mind the cost. Therefore, because Feisal Ali was not a threat to the President's image in the eyes of his minions, Lieutenant Wadi was - because he said mean things about the President. Anyone in the National Police Service, the National Intelligence Service or the Kenya Defence Forces who believes this Lieutenant Wadi had the capacity to assassinate the President and Commander-in-Chief needs to have their head examined - and reduced from active duty until his mental status is confirmed. If there was a sign that this presidency had lost face it was in the fact that not one securocrat saw fit to brief Kenyans on why it had taken the intervention of a global policeman's club to capture Feisal Ali and extradite him to Kenya. We will ignore, for now, the demand by the People's Republic of China for the extradition of the Seventy-seven Chinese of Runda to China while their prosecution is still ongoing.

This obsession with the political image of the President - especially when it is reduced to petty political issues of little import - and the lengths to which minions will go to preserve face is getting out of hand. Kenyan politicians have often been small-minded. This is not something that is new to the President and Commander-in-Chief; he has always played above that fray and, to my knowledge, has never encouraged anyone to massage his ego by going after mosquitoes with a sledgehammer. But in recent months, faceless men and women have made it their mission in life to protect the President's political image. If it were just the Senior Directors of the President's Strategic Communications Unit, it would be no skin off ones nose. But the active participation of rank-and-file and senior public officers in these political battles sets a worrying trend and augurs ill for the future of the public administration of Kenya. The President has an opportunity to nip this lunacy in the bud before it gets out of hand. Whether he does anything will only be revealed when the next Lieutenant Wadi pops up on the internet.