Secret Police, eh?

Abubakar Shariff who went by the nom de guerre Makaburi was an Islamist preacher who was shot dead ("sprayed by bullets," said The Star) on 1st April. Some thought it was an April Fools' joke. It isn't. This blogger knows pitifully little about the late Makaburi; reading between the lines, there are few who are shedding tears for the departure of the Islamist cleric. He had celebrated the murderous exploits of al Shabaab fighters at the Westgate in September 2013, and had defended their tactics of indiscriminate murder.

The reaction from the men and women atop our opinion-making tree, though, has proven disturbing. This nation has blithely accepted the reality that of all the institutions meant to protect our lives and property, the faith of the people in the forces of law and order remains at a nadir because of the corruption that permeates every nook and cranny of the security firmament. The forces of law and order are taken to be illegitimately exercising their mandates because they frequently pick and choose which bits of the Law of Kenya to enforce and which to ignore, favouring the high and mighty at the expense of the low and weak. When taken together with the low esteem with which the elected political class is held, and the men and women they appoint to do their bidding, "civilised" discussion of the trigger-happiness of strangers and security types alike is unlikely in Kenya today.

Makaburi was felled, it is suspected, by a secret police unit, just as his fellow Islamist, Aboud Rogo, is suspected to have been felled. Because these two were very prominently sympathetic with the demonic aspirations of al Shabaab, only their families will mourn their passing. Kenyans from all walks of life will celebrate the extra-legal killings and pray for more of the same against "enemies" as loosely defined by the elected classes they do not trust.

In a nation that claims to live under the protection of its constitution and body of laws, it is surprising that the authorities' faith in the law is not more assured. Aboud Rogo and Makaburi were notorious for their utterances; they made no effort to hide their sentiments or sympathies. How is it that a government that has a police force standing at approximately 80,000 strong and very large secret police has consistently failed to find information or evidence that can withstand the test of litigation in our courts of law? Perhaps the answer lies in that a secret police system inherited from a colonial power that has resisted reform for nigh on fifty years has found a new way to bolster its usefulness to the powers-that-be by "eliminating" problems without the bother of due process or a trial. Coupled with the apathy of the liberal intelligentsia of Kenya, expect more of the same in the years to come.

Faith-based organisations, especially Christian leaders' associations, have proven unequal to the task. Rather than denounce the individuals for their utterances, the likes of canon Peter Karanja, speaking for the National Council of Churches of Kenya, find it convenient to blame all Muslim leaders and all mosques for the "radicalisation" of youth in Mombasa. The same is true for the more militant evangelical organisations which speak without taking into account the nuances of the problems that Kenya's coast faces.

What many fail to consider is that once the secret police and their bosses finish off the Islamist threat, they will find new enemies to go after. Perhaps it will be trade unionists. perhaps its will be teachers' unions' leaders. Perhaps it will be matatu associations' bosses. How about those who would spend their own resources providing medicines to the downtrodden and forgotten? When a secret police goes out to look for an enemy, it usually finds one. Those tom-tomming the gunning down of Makaburi might want to take a lesson from his murder. One day, someone else may be celebration your death at the hands of the secret police.