WHY KENYANS WILL NEVER KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WESTGETE ATTACK
WANJALA .B. DANSON
Is there anything Kenya as a country gains from keeping crucial information from its citizens. This is a question that keeps on lingering in my mind in the many circumstances that the country finds itself in serious circumstances that always leaves Kenyans with more questions than answers. What I know and we all know is that an immediate answer that is clearly understood may be painful but will be accepted and dealt with, with time, and that it is better that way than somebody keeping you waiting forever.
Tell the truth and it will set you free is a vocabulary to Kenyan leaders. They would rather go round and round telling lies that some circumstance they get mixed up and say opposites of what their colleague said before. Take for instance the Westgate attack where Ole-Lenku kept on insisting that the attackers had been cornered. He told Kenyans that four of the attackers had been shot dead and the rest were in their hands. But, what happened afterwards. Actually, nobody was shown as evidence that any of terrorists had been killed and no one was still in the building by end of day four. And thus the question, where are four that were killed? What about the number fifteen that we were told was the number of terrorists? How was it arrived at given that the government cannot tell who attacked the mall? Who is ever going to believe what they say next?
The government has a habit of not telling the truth but rather fooling its citizens in ways best known to them and by the time they expect to know the truth, something else comes up as a cover up of the first story. Recall the death of George Saitoti, his assistant Orwa Ojode and the other who were with them in the plane. The truth to what caused the accident was never revealed but anybody with a reasoning head could easily link the deaths to the drug menace. Mutulaa Kilonzo’s death was also erased thought the Kenyans’ mind by time. At that hour when Kenyans wanted to know the truth behind it, no one was bold enough to tell it. Not even the government that he had served for many years.
Telling the truth is good because in given circumstances it helps the rest learn. In the Westgate attack, I am sure some people died hiding from terrorilists who had escaped hours, two days before. If the government could have told Kenyans the real circumstance at hand, relatives of those who had still hiding could have asked them to leave the building before it collapsed.
Still property like cars that got burnt in the incidence could be saved. But since they were responding to what they were not sure of many lives ended up being lost. Kenyans will never forgive the government for their carelessness in communication. With this kind of system, we cannot be sure that we will ever know the truth of what is taking place in our country. Kenya must change its way of communication or else loose Kenyans’.