Ropes are way more effective than solid stone walls.

If this blogger weren't such a cold-hearted lawyer with a slight penchant for sadism, he would weep buckets for Joseph Ole Lenku. This blogger has on several occasions in the past month been compelled to make his way to Sheria House, that bastion of astute legal interpretations which, as many of the residents of our fair city know, is along Harambee Avenue and, rather coincidentally, smack-dub next to Harambee House. Harambee House, for those visiting this fair land for the first time, happens to be the President's some-time office. More recently it has become the permanent resident of one Joseph Ole Lenku; his sleepless nights are because of the bombings, shootings, kidnappings and sundry mysterious deaths of political movers and shakers of various hues and dispositions.

I would weep for the Cabinet Secretary because, like it or not, the men and women (this blogger supposes it is really just men) who advise Mr Ole Lenku on wheres and wherefores of the security and intelligence sector are men and women who have spent the past fifty years treating the people as akin to something that would be broadcast using a flying toilet. Mr Ole Lenku's advisors' psychological profile would seem to consist of 90% paranoia and 10% extreme paranoia. For proof, all one needs to do is take a leisurely stroll down Harambee Avenue (and the feeder lane along Haile Selassie Avenue, especially opposite Times Tower and the Central Bank). The paranoia and intelligence of Kenya's security establishment will be plain to see for those with eyes to look.

That bit of the Capital's business district is almost exclusively occupied by the Government of Kenya. There's Bima House, The Treasury, Herufi House, Vigilance House, the Central Bank, Jogoo House, the Foreign Affairs ministry, Harambee House, the newly named Harambee House Annex (oldies will remember it as Shell-BP House), Sheria House and County Hall. Mr Ole Lenku's security people must have told the Cabinet Secretary that they could not keep an eye on every person who walked by Harambee House, Harambee House Annex, Vigilance House, Times Tower or the Central Bank, not even with the CCTV cameras that they purchased at such extortionate prices. They must have argued that terrorists and people of ill-motives were hiding quite effectively among the civilian population and security and intelligence officers could not identify them. Therefore, they had come up with a fool-proof building security system that would keep the occupants of these sensitive buildings safe from harm. In addition to the armed guards, armed patrols, CCTV cameras, six-feet high fences and restricted access systems, the security of these buildings would be guaranteed by surrounding them with...ropes, nice, long, nylon ropes.

Do not scoff. In a city where people are led by the nose, a simple rope is the most intimidating barrier one will encounter. (It must be mentioned, though, that outside of Vigilance House there is an armed policeman with an assault rifle who patrols the fifteen or so steps inside the rope barrier to ensure that no adventurous Nairobian gets any funny ideas about jumping the line.) Along Harambee Avenue on that side of Haile Selassie Avenue, hundreds, thousands of Nairobians will risk being run down by GK-emblazoned, siren-blaring Murungarus and Cabinet Secretarial Passats flying hither and thither just so they can walk on the correct side of the rope line. ladies and gentlemen, all the pedestrian pavements along Harambee Avenue and Haile Selassie Avenue and outside sensitive buildings have become, with the tying of a rope, security zones. And because terrorists will be deterred by ropes and bullets will find it difficult to penetrate the rope-enclosed zone and because bombs have no effect beyond the rope line, Mr Ole Lenku's security establishment can pat themselves on the back. They have secured the buildings. The occupants of these buildings can work with a calm mind.