On Tuesday afternoon, explosions, heavy gunshots, fire and blaring sirens were reported at the Dusit Hotel in Riverside Drive. Nairobi was under attack by unknown armed assailants.
Law enforcement officers, the RedCross, the media and curious members of the public all flooded at the scene within minutes.
Soon enough, a rescue operation to save civilians who had been trapped inside the building began.
Even though the relevant authorities on the ground did their best to reassure Kenyans that everything was under control, Uhuru Kenyatta and Mike Sonko’s silence was louder than their multiple press briefings.
At a time when the country’s capital was under attack, both the president and the governor were nowhere to be seen.
In fact, Mike Sonko’s social media team was busy posting photos of a meeting he attended in Mombasa where the area governor had met his opponents to “make peace” as the spirit of the handshake intensified.
Speculation by the online community suggested that the two leaders were in no condition to speak to the public despite the new year’s festivities having come to an end about a week ago.
As is stated in the law, in the case of a senior’s absence in such a critical matter, then his deputy automatically takes up responsibility and covers for them.
Kenyans waited in vain as both the president and his deputy failed to show up. Nobody seemed to be as concerned about the governor, however, since his presence or communication wouldn’t have made that much of a difference anyway.
So where were the nation’s two leaders at a time of utmost vulnerability?
A little bird from Jubilee Headquarters in Pangani has in great confidentiality informed this site that the deputy intentionally refused to cover up for his senior following recent happenings in the Kenyan political scene.
It is believed that he felt greatly sideline of late and he was exhausted from constantly covering up for his senior’s mistakes, and so this time, when requested to address the nation instead, he gave it a stern no.
Calls for the president’s whereabouts were lightly answered by “he has been adequately briefed and he is aware of the situation.”
Efforts to make an unrelenting deputy change his mind failed to go through and what followed was a hurriedly prepared press briefing from the Internal Security Cabinet Secretary who looked unsure of what he read.
Those words would later come back to bite him as Kenyans continued crying for help from within the building he had declared previously declared safe in his press briefing.
As much as they tried to hide it, the cracks were there for everyone to see. There was visible panic even from their faces, which is expected after a suspected terror attack, but their worry wasn’t about the attack, it was about saying the right things to the public.
As good of an attempt as it was, they failed miserably.
