At war in the Dark.

Arsène Wenger, has managed Arsenal since 1996. He is the longest serving manager of the club, as well as its most successful, though the statistics from the past decade have not been very flattering for the millions of fans Arsenal has globally. Mr Wenger has, however, guaranteed that Arsenal would never be relegated and that it will always feature in the UEFA Champions' League. Mr Wenger's is a business decision, to my mind. His primary goal seems not to collect championship trophies but fatten the club's bank accounts year in, year out. Arsenal's investors have kept faith with Mr Wenger because he makes them pots of money.

Football may be a proxy for war, but no lives are lost and no blood is shed, bar one or two accidents or deliberate fouls. That is not the case with public safety or national security. President Kenyatta, in a way, is the principal investor in public safety and national security, and he has different managers for different aspects of the two. The national security sector is dominated by the disciplined forces: the Kenya Defence Forces (including its Military Intelligence Unit and its special forces) and the National Police Service ("regular" police, Administration Police, General Service Unit, Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, Anti-Stock Theft Unit and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations)  , with the National Intelligence Service as the quasi-military spy organisation that collects and collects intelligence in Kenya and across the border. Public safety, sadly, seems to be a second thought; very little is said about how it can contribute to national security.

In the space of two weeks, Kenya's border with Somalia in Mandera has been breached twice by al Shabaab and scores of Kenyans have been murdered in cold blood. After the first massacre, the Deputy President declared grandiosely that the Kenya Defence Forces had pursued the attackers across the border, killed a hundred of them, destroyed their camp and fighting equipment. Yesterday's massacre does not seem to have driven the point home to al Shabaab that Kenya will not take these attacks lying down. Instead, al Shabaab seems to have been emboldened. President Kenyatta's security managers have done what they always do: they have issued statements and they have promised action. This is the practical definition of a broken record.

In the analogy with Arsenal and Mr Wenger, if the securocracy was turning the public safety equivalent of a profit, we would have no problem with keeping Cabinet Secretary Lenku, Principal Secretary Juma, Inspector-General Kimaiyo, Chief of Defence Forces Karangi, Director of National Intelligence Kamweru, and Director of Criminal Investigations Muhoro in office. One or all of them have failed us; presidential exhortations for all Kenyans to take part in securing the nation are no longer sufficient. Keeping them in office merely ensures that the conversation around national security and public safety will be dominated by their failures and not the reforms required to guarantee the safety of the people and the security of the State.

We all prize loyalty in our servants. But that loyalty must prove itself by competence and effectiveness. It must also be a reflection of the effectiveness of any organisation to accomplish its mission. Ms Juma and Messrs Lenku, Kimaiyo, Karangi, Kamweru and Muhoro may be loyal servants, but during their service, more than a hundred Kenyans have been massacred without the perpetrators of these heinous crimes being caught, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. President Kenyatta's security managers are destroying Kenyan's faith in the defence forces, the police, and the intelligence agencies. They are undermining the peoples' faith in President Kenyatta's government. They are engendering disappointment and mistrust.

Kenya is at war. It's enemy seems able to attack at will. It's enemy seems to have tentacles in all the major hotspots: Mombasa, Lamu, Mandera, Wajir, West Pokot, Turkana, Marsabit, Samburu. No one is safe, whether they are police, military or civilian. Hundreds have died since September 2013. No changes worth noting have taken place. Official State speeches have gotten more farcical. Hashtag sideshows dominate public discourse. The people are losing faith in their government, its institutions, their leaders, and in each other. We are entering something akin to Alighieri's Inferno. I do not know if we are capable of finding our way out. I do know that if President Kenyatta wants to rebuild our faith in him, he must sweep out the Augean Stables that his security apparatus has become. It is the only rational choice he has left.