• History is repeating itself after senior military officers fell in 1992 crash
In his novel 'Goldfinger', British writer Ian Fleming, the man who gave the world James Bond, wrote: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
I was looking back at some of the events that happened last month, and basically, we’ve had the happenstance and the coincidence. Hopefully, we won’t have to endure the third, which could be enemy action.
The crash of the Air Force helicopter that killed former Chief of the Defence Force General Francis Ogolla and nine others happened on April 18. It eerily echoed a crash involving an Air Force aircraft in Nairobi that happened 32 years ago on April 17.
In the 1992 crash, to date Kenya’s worst air disaster, 56 people, among them senior military officers, perished.
The deaths happened when a Buffalo Transport aircraft belonging to what was then called the ’82 Air Force, plunged into a block of flats in Nairobi’s Kaloleni neighbourhood.
All 49 people on board died. This number included senior military personnel and their families, who had at 8am that morning boarded their flight to Mombasa. Most on the flight were heading to spend their Easter holiday at the Coast.
There were five people killed in the block of flats, including a pregnant woman. The 56th death was that of a civilian who survived the fire at crash, but died while receiving treatment in hospital.
As with the recent crash in the North Rift region, in 1992, there were immediate suspicions raised by the opposition about the crash and calls for an inquiry to investigate the cause.
Within days of the 1992 incident, the Department of Defence set up a military board of enquiry, but that did not stop politicians and others from speculating.
The crash also happened with just under nine months to go to that year's historic first multiparty election in Kenya since the so-called little general election of 1966.
Following the 1992 crash, there was a memorable spat between ruling party Kanu’s secretary general Joseph Kamotho and the then Ford interim chairperson, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
Jaramogi had visited the bereaved families at Kaloleni Estate and while giving his condolences, had speculated that the crash may have been the result of poor servicing of the air force aircraft.
Kamotho immediately released a press statement accusing Jaramogi of peppering his condolence message to the bereaved with “propaganda”.
What stung Kamotho more than Jaramogi’s speculation, was the fact the opposition leader had visited the bereaved families while no big Kanu bosses, including the President, had been seen at the site.
As I pointed out earlier, there was a historic election on the horizon, and the pressure was on for the government to ensure that it was seen to be free and fair.
One of the demands by the opposition and their supporters among the foreign diplomats in Nairobi was that foreign observers be allowed to monitor the polling.
On April 14, 1992, President Daniel arap Moi finally gave in to the pressure and announced that he would invite member countries of the Commonwealth to observe the elections.
At the end of May this year, South Africa holds a very important General Election.
This election has seen a number of opposition parties come together in a coalition that they hope will defeat the ruling ANC after 30 years of democracy.
Since after the historic 1994 election, there has been no clamour for foreign observers, but this year, the opposition has been insistent.
This insistence has got the ANC saying the opposition, which particularly wants US observers, is seeking to "mortgage" the nation to foreign powers.
As all this was going on April 29, the opposition got their wish in as far as foreign observers. African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki said the AU would deploy an Election Observation Mission to South Africa.
The mission, to be led by immediate former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, will be made up of 60 short-term observers (STOs), including three Core Team electoral experts, set to observe the elections from May 21 to June 3.