3 MAIN REASONS WHY RUTO APPOINTED OGOLLA AS KDF BOSS

Among the many things that President William Ruto talked about in his relatively lengthy media interview on the night of yesterday on May 14th was his appointment of General Francis Ogolla as the new Chief of Defense Forces.

While responding to a question by Citizen TV’s Ayub Abdikadir regarding alleged tribalism in some state appointments, the President took a moment to use General Ogolla’s appointment as General Robert Kibochi’s successor as an example of how fair, balanced and just his government is.

The President said that despite General Francis Ogolla having been previously implicated in the August 2022 Bomas saga in which individuals allied to the former President Uhuru Kenyatta, and the Azimio Coalition are said to have stormed the national tallying centre to try and influence the Presidential results, he still overlooked the same and made him the CDF.

As to why he settled on Ogolla despite all that and even after being handed around ten choices, the Head of State gave the following three main reasons;

1. A Good CV and track record.

While making it sound obvious or making it known that competency is key or rather paramount in State appointments, the President said that one of the main reasons why he settled on Ogolla as the new CDF is because of his good curriculum vitae and track record.

That “General Francis Ogolla is among the people that went to the Bomas of Kenya to try and overturn my victory but when I looked at his CV, he was the best person to be the Chief of Defense Forces.

I therefore called him, sat him down and told him that “my friend, you went to Bomas to try and overturn my victory but because you’re the best person to be the CDF, I’m going to give you the job”.”

2. He was coerced to act wrongly at Bomas.

The President said that contrary to the advice by some individuals around him that he shouldn’t have appointed Ogolla as the CDF because of the Bomas saga, he chose to overlook the same and forgave him because he understood what had happened.

That “I made the decision to appoint General Ogolla as CDF consciously and against the advice of many people who told me that “you should not reward this kind of behaviour”.

When I spoke to him, what captivated my mind was that “this gentleman could have made a mistake probably because the then Commander-in-chief had told him what to do”.

3. His community.

The President said that he appointed General Ogolla as the CDF as prove to the people of the Nyanza region that they can hold any of office in this country.

That “I was aware that since independence, there’s nobody from the Nyanza region who had ever been Chief of Defense Forces.

I therefore didn’t want to create a situation where a whole community thinks that they can’t occupy a certain office.”