Poachers and Bombers.

The Big Five. If you are Kenyan or you love Kenya, they mean something to you. They mean a lot to the Kenya Wildlife Service. They are under enormous risk these days, especially elephants and rhinos. Poaching has become a sophisticated and syndicated operation - insiders at the KWS, the National Police, border points and a worldwide trafficking network that cocks-a-snook at the global forces of law and order. And it is no longer a Kenyan problem; it is now continental in scale and devastation.

The problems in the wildlife sector, however, pale in comparison to the mayhem being visited on the innocent and the blameless. In the span of just one year, dozens of Kenyans have been blown up, shot, and had their properties destroyed at the hands of terrorists and brigands. Terrorism seems to be benefitting from the same sophistication employed - deployed - in corrupting the national security establishment. There isn't a Kenyan alive - not even the President - who believes that there are any honest officers left in the National Police. (Do you remember when the President warned the corrupt at Harambee House that they would soon face the full might of his office?)

It is only a matter of time before the link is found between the increased degree of poaching and terror attacks in Kenya. It is not as far-fetched as one might believe. The President may have his sights elsewhere, but he came as near as anyone to proving, in public, the link between politicians and violence in Kenya - because that link exists in the dark underworld of the poacher.

Many Kenyans might be docile but we are not fools and we are not blind. There is money to be made using lawful means; there is substantially more money to be made by cutting corners and committing crimes. The rumours, suspicions and innuendos regarding the involvement of senior politicians in poaching refuse to die down. It is not because Kenyans are inveterate innuendo-peddlers and rumours-mongerers but because we know, deep in our marrows, that we cannot trust the media. It has been in bed with every kind of charlatan and snake-oil salesman since the mzungu decided to build a free press in Kenya. And when it comes to covering up crimes in the name of profit, the Kenya media is second to none.

This blogger hesitates to speculate about what will happen when the link between poachers and bombers is broadcast in the open. This nation will be in uncharted waters. Links between one or the other have always been there, but proof of it will be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back. In our hypocrisy, we prefer to pretend that we do not know that our favourite parliamentarian is a wastrel and a vagabond in league with poachers or bombers from here and far or that the judicial officer who gives the reading in church every Sunday has been trousering millions to slant his judgments this way or that. So long as you are not blatant about it, we will tut tut in disappointment and get on with our lives. But now that the veil is slipping, some of the more excitable members of that demographic that should give the State jitters might decide to confront the problem, head on, once and for all. It will not be pretty.