The Cabinent Secretary for Defence, Mr Aden Duale has gazetted the deployment terms for the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF). KDF is set to be deployed countrywide in all 47 counties for an indefinite period.
Following protests across the country due to the Finance Bill 2024, KDF was deployed to help the National Police Service. In a Tuesday Gazette notice Duale had deployed the army due to what he termed as a “security emergency”.
However, a court order on Wednesday required the CS to define scope, duration and areas of military deployment. Responding to the court order, Duale has stated that the soldiers are occupying Kenyan streets to deal with threats emanating from cyberspaces.
The CS wrote, “Based on the prevailing threats to national security planned and orchestrated through various platforms in the cyber space, the deployment will cover the Forty-Seven Counties within the Republic of Kenya.”
KDF is expected to beef up security in areas where critical installations and infrastructure are located.
Kenyan protests have had volumes of conversations ongoing on social platforms with citizens rallying behind the #RejectFinanceBill2024 hashtag. During this period, the largest space ever hosted on X took place to discuss the protests, upto 138,000 listeners tuned in.
Nonetheles, sending soldiers with Armed Personnel Carriers (APC) to deal with threats from digital space is puzzling. However, Duale says the military will be out of their barracks until “normalcy returns”.
Kenya Internet Outage
The government has responed to the protests by trying to disrupt digital infrastructure and personalities. On Tuesday this week, after protestors overran police forces and entered the National Assembly building, KDF was deployed. This deployment also coincided with an internet outage.
Till now, the root cause of the internet disruption remains unexplained. Kenyan network operator Safaricom issued a statement claiming that two of its undersea cables had experienced outages. This claim by the telco ired Kenyans and led to a number of influencers severing ties with the company. In addition, internet observatory platform Netblocks disputed this claim, stating no evidence of physical cable damage.
Individuals who have been vocal online have also been taken into custody and held in communicado. This was part of the authorities attempts to stiffle social media conversations. One such individual is John Frank Githiaka, a young Kenyan techie who was leading efforts to digitise the MP recall process.
