Over-policing is not the answer.

In the aftermath of the Westgate attack in September 2013, it was proposed, in a classic knee-jerk reaction, that the anti-terror statutory regime required beefing up to equip the police, the defence forces, and the President with ever greater powers to protect Kenyans from further harm. This blogger sympathised greatly with the victims, but argued against such a course of action. Unless we lived in a hypervigilant society such as the Jewish State of Israel or in a police state like Rwanda is headed for, an even more draconian statutory regime would not prevent further acts of terror. A church in Likoni was attacked by gunmen on the 23rd of March; a child is fighting for its life with a bullet lodged in its head and its mother dead.

Kenya has the legislative and administrative machinery to tackle these acts of terror. However we describe them, these acts involve crimes against Kenyans. The Penal Code is a good place to start when prosecuting the persons responsible for these attacks. What we must guard against is the approach taken by the  western powers which treat every foreigner with great suspicion and go to extraordinary lengths to interfere and intervene in the affairs of other nations.

The United States' invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan has not made the United States any safer; but it has made it ever more policed by the surveillance state: the FBI, CIA, NSA and similar other three-letter-acronym secret police organizations. The Orwellian fear of an all-powerful, all-seeing state is coming true in the United States, eroding basic freedoms of privacy and protection from warrantless searches. Kenya has always been an over-policed state; in the past, the over-policing was for political ends. Presidents Kenyatta the Elder and Moi spent a great deal of time and money building up a secret police whose job was to ensure they became presidents for life. Only Kenyatta the Elder managed that trick; Moi had the good sense to have an exit strategy which he executed with precision.

Mwai Kibaki dismantled the secret police apparatus of the Kenyatta and Moi years, but built up his own to wipe out the crime organisations born in the period between 1992 and 2002. Even the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial killings found that Mwai Kibaki's government was responsible for the murder and disappearing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men and women affiliated with the Mungiki. What many Kenyans are calling for today, whether they will admit it or not, is for Uhuru Kenyatta to build up a secret police of his own and unleash it on the forces of terror and violent crime determined to make Kenya as unsafe as Somalia, southern Ethiopia, South Sudan or northern Uganda. it is why even well-meaning opinion-makers whose lives have been touched by the spectre of violent crime are no longer averse to a secret police that executes "terrorists" and "armed gunmen" without the bother of an investigation or a trial.

This is the slippery slope Kenya must get off. When Moi and Kenyatta fought their wars with the Shifta and the Mwakenya, innocent Kenyans were caught up in the war. The United States calls these collateral damage. Collateral damage has pernicious outcomes. people become ever more suspicious of their neighbours; many will arm themselves and use those arms whenever they fear for their safety. The circle of violence will grow ever larger and the cycle will repeat itself. But the worst possible outcome is based on the presumption that the President will unleash his secret police only on those who commit crimes against Kenyans; none posits that he will one day turn that secret police against legitimate dissenters or members of the Minority Party.

The solution, as always, is much easier proposed than implemented. Kenya is way too secretive, and we care way too much about the reputations of others. It is time we published information that helped Kenyans protect themselves better. Unless there is a legitimate reason for keeping the identities of violent crime or terror suspects secret, it is time we published their biographical details in the papers and online so that Kenyans know what to look out for. Publish the location of all police stations and police camps and the names and ranks of the officers in those stations. Publish the hotlines to the National Intelligence Service, the Criminal Investigations Department, the Anti-Terror Police Unit, the General Service Unit garrison, the Administration Police Headquarters, Vigilance House and the Office of the Inspector-General. If you want to make ordinary Kenyans part of the war on violent crime or terror,s top treating them with suspicion; get rid of the idiotic barriers on pedestrian pavements or the the roads. Do not force Kenyans to walk in the road dodging cars, matatus and boda bodas. Eliminate the corruption in the departments that deal with the registration of persons and speed up the introduction of smart identification documents. Whether Uhuru Kenyatta, Joseph Ole Lenku, Inspector-General Kimaiyo and the rest of them will act, only the next "terror" attack, car-jacking or armed robbery will tell.