Nothing but grief.

It seems that the Kenya Defence Forces has spent too much time selling charcoal in Kismayo to do its job. Or the National Police Service has been busily erecting barriers on Taifa Road to do its job. Twenty-eight Kenyans were murdered because they were from the wrong tribe, they were travelling in the wrong part of the country and they did so along the worst roads. But what we get is confusion, masquerading as action.

Enter the Keystone Kops. The Deputy President, the Interior Cabinet Secretary and the Inspector-General of Police have done everything in their not inconsiderable skillset to paint as confusing a picture as they could. First we are told that al Shabaab is involved. Then we are told that are not. Then we are told that they are. al Shabaab, by the by, claims responsibility but the Kesytone Kops refuse to take their word for it. But they send in the KDF to retaliate resulting in "more than one hundred fatalities", the destruction of three Technicals and the seizure of caches of arms.

Meanwhile, governors, senators and "leaders" from the Kenya's forgotten bits claim that their warnings of imminent attacks are ignored because the warnings were given at political rallies, that is, "outside the established channels." Mutahi "Tyranny-of-Numbers" Ngunyi does not believe that it is al Shabaab; he smells a rat. The Inspector-General's "intelligence unit" has been disbanded; it was not very intelligent and it didn't seem to provide him with any useful intelligence.

Thank God the new Director of National Intelligence is a behind-the-scenes man and not a publicity hound like his colleagues in the securocracy. That won't stop us, though, from asking what exactly he is doing to ensure that intelligence is collected, analysed and disseminated in a timely fashion so that bus passengers are not massacred by the side of the road by unknown bandits. The seventeen-billion-a-year we give the NIS seems to be a complete waste of money if we cannot even properly identify the murderers of Kenyans and the authors of such heinous crimes.

I do not sympathise with Uhuru Kenyatta or his administration. They can publish all the rosy statistics they like about crime going down, but so long as their administration keeps kicking in mosques' doors without properly explaining why, so long as Kenyans are massacred by bandits, so long as police are afraid to serve, the fault lies at his feet. The Cabinet Secretary and the Inspector-general have lost their usefulness; they are the security albatross that may yet doom #TeamDigital's plans.

The Cabinet Secretary is overwhelmed. He has never been a member of the disciplined forces. No, the National Youth Service does not count. He has never served in a security agency as a manager. He came to office without close ties to insiders within the securocracy. He is a stranger, almost two years since taking his oath of office. In that time he has made dumbfounding statements of burning mattresses, local political networks and tweefs. He does not have the gravitas of a George Saitoti nor the political clout of a John Michuki. He is a fish out of water, just as Katoo ole Metito was. What exactly does President Kenyatta expect the Cabinet Secretary to do that the CS has not done in the past two years?

The Inspector-General is a whole other kettle of fish. He is an experienced policeman. He has commanded men in the field. He has protected the President. He oversaw police operations for a time. He is no one's fool. But he has been an utter disaster as Inspector-General.The relationship between the people and the police is at an all-time low, and idiotic proposals like Nyumba Kumi or the gradual theft of the public commons for "security purposes" are not making the relationship any better. President Kenyatta is loyal to those who are loyal to him; if that be the case, he can find comfy sinecures for the CS and the IGP - away from the security sector. It is time he bit the bullet; the CS and the IGP have brought his administration and the people of Kenya nothing but grief.