No dialogue, no reforms.

The Majority Leader in the Senate is working on a  Bill that seeks to create the equivalent of a joint operations team made up of the Kenya Defence Forces, the National Police Service and the National Intelligence Service to respond to "national emergencies" swiftly, effectively and efficiently. Good luck to him. Mr Kindiki will come up against an iron law of the Kenya civil service: no one cedes control of any part of his empire in Kenya. Ever.

In the security sector, the empires are plain to see. Inspector-General Kimaiyo has what used to be the Kenya Police Force. (Some will argue it still is regardless of the change of name by constitutional fiat.) Principal Secretary Iringo, the spiritual successor in provincial administration-related affairs to Big Frank Kimemia, has the Administration Police; all talk of integrating the APs in the National Police Service remains talk only. Director-general Gichangi maintains a mysterious hold on the National Intelligence Service which is apt given he is Kenya's spymaster. Until President Kenyatta dismantles the empires that compete with each other in the security sector, co-ordination among them will be difficult at best; co-operation between them will be near impossible.

Into this morass shouldn't wade the Senate. It has proven woefully inept at its core mandate of ensuring the success of devolution. It is not just its hamfisted handling of two key functions, the budget and impeachments, that indict its capabilities, but in offering the government wisdom and advise as befits a quasi-upper-house, the Senate has been woeful. Mr Kindiki epitomises the misguided tendencies of the Senate every time he speaks in public. In his county, he comes across as a no-nonsense Senator cracking the whip at the laggards and idiots who dare challenge his authority; to the rest of the country, he comes across as a clueless braggart out to stamp his authority where none exists.

The CORDian demand for "dialogue" might be advanced foolishly and recklessly but it is not unwarranted. We need an intelligent and comprehensive conversation for the reforms required to ensure that the security sector performs its core functions of securing the nation, protecting our sovereignty and keeping the people safe. This is a conversation that should ideally be led by Parliament; hearings must be held with key stakeholders in the sector, professionals who have conducted studies on the problems bedeviling it, and victims in order o devise better strategies. But Parliament, if one goes by the utterances of parliamentary leaders on both sides of the political divide, has proven to be an intellectual albatross. The longer we pray for parliamentary salvation, the more likely we are to continue suffering at the hands of brigands, bandits, murderers and terrorists.

Into this breach must step in constitutional commissions, and not just the obvious human rights ones. The Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution and the National Police Service Commission must lead the process of re-examining the security sector. The empires that hinder collective effort must be dismantled. Macharia Munene, writing in the Business Daily, get it right when he insists that common training for the key institutions is a vital first step to standardising procedures and tactics. It will not do to copy tactics employed by the United States or Israel without first determining what our security institutions can and cannot jointly do. Dialogue, or whatever description we give it, is the first step in reclaiming the higher ground in the war on violent crime against Kenyans.