Secret law-making.

Stick to what you know.

Here goes. Law-making is not the easiest walk in the park. I am not talking about the simple laws like the Public Service (Values and Principles) Act, 2015, or the Statutory Instruments Act, 2013. I am talking about complex statutes that have multiple moving parts, that affect our rights and fundamental freedoms in subtle and insidious ways, and which require the most delicate political touch to see them through. Like the Security Laws (Amendments) Act, 2014. It amended a whole bunch of security-related and quasi-security-related laws. And it was total mess.

From a technical perspective, it was an excellent piece of legislation. It was not overly wordy. It stuck faithfully to the linguistic styles of the statutes that were getting amended. It covered all the bases that the securocracy wanted covered. And, vitally, it had the complete and total support of the President and his party. It was still a mess, and it took the High Court to point out that some of its moving parts had moved too far from the norm.

Law-making is like trying to herd cats in a hurricane at midnight. Well-laid plans are laid to waste because this, that or the other vested interest feels shortchanged.And when all the pipers have been paid, the thing that you wanted to solve using the law metastasizes and becomes an unwieldy monster, incapable of being corralled into obedience. Then it gets messy.

The Security Laws (Amendments) Act was the proper response to the incessant barrage of bad news from the anti-Shabaab front. Somalia, by all accounts, was going swimmingly well for the Kenya Defence Forces. The African Union Mission in Somalia, bar one or two fatal errors, was propping up the Federal Government, Mogadishu was not getting bombed every day, Kismayu was making money hand over fist from sugar imports and charcoal exports, and the USA was integrating its Predators and Reapers into the anti-Shabaab campaign, visiting hellfire from the skies on the Shabaab's high command, decimating it with ruthless precision. Somalia, so far as we know, was going to be just fine.

In the homeland, however, things were getting out of hand. The straw that broke the camel's back were the ten-days-apart twin massacres in Mandera. It were no longer the indigenous residents of Lamu or Mandera who were getting butchered; expats from Murang'a and Busia were getting murdered under the noses of the forces of law and order. An ill-timed and ill-advised victory lap by the Deputy President about a pursuit deep into Somalia that took out a hundred militants and their "technicals" did nothing to restore confidence that the securocracy had things in hand. Hence the Security Laws (Amendments) Act.

It was a careful assessment of the security statutory environment. It was a well-thought analysis of the various moving parts, the overlapping mandates and the wide gaps in surveillance, interdiction, intelligence-gathering, threat assessment and inter-agency co-operation. In many ways it made sense to keep its development secret from the people it was meant to protect. After all, for decades, the people hadn't wanted to know how they were being protected, only that they were. It turns out, the past is a very different country and that overweening secrecy so beloved by the securocracy proved to be the Security Laws (Amendments) Act's Achilles Heel.

Back in the day, when information was not on a superhighway, securocratic secrecy was no big deal. No more. If it is on a computer somewhere, if it is written down somewhere, if it is spoken of in hushed tones to anyone, we will find out about it. In the digital age, after John Githongo led the charge, there is nothing sacred any more. If you have a securocratic secret, one way or the other it is going to come out. The minds behind the Security Laws (Amendments) Act should have built legitimacy for their project by getting all heir influences, dodgy and not, to sing its praises on all platforms. In this way they could have painted the leaden-footed Minority Party into a corner when the Bill crash-landed in the National Assembly. The Speaker wouldn't have had to resort to the tactics it did; the Minority Party would have looked like the small-minded elitists they are; and the Third Sector may have had a role in softening the blunt edges that the High Court threw out.

As it is now, secrecy and law-making are pulling apart. There are those who will make the transition with little fuss. There are those prepared to dig in their heels, and come hell or high water, no one is prying their precious secrets out of them. These are the people behind there's-a-sugar-deal-there-isn't-a-sugar-deal fiasco currently empowering the Minority Party and causing rifts in the ruling alliance.