My low opinion of the National Police Service has not changed. My low opinion of the men and women in charge of policing policy, police training and everything in between has not changed. If it is true that police lobbed tear-gas at primary school children exercising their Article 37 right to assemble, demonstrate, picket and petition, it might yet fall lower, even though I am now scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the securocracy.
The fallacy that a change in management was all that was needed to sort out policing and its flaws has been exposed. Hon. Maj. Gen. (Rtd.) Joseph Nkaissery was the new boy expected to get policing ticking over like a fine Rolls-Royce; teargassed children makes policing more akin to a diesel-belching Route 12C "Nissan". Until Joseph Kipchirchir Boinet is confirmed in office, Samuel Arachi will continue to act in office - presumably faithfully tracing the steps of the hapless David Kimaiyo, including the incredibly stupid decision to grab public sidewalks in the name of security.
A change in the management of the securocracy should have gone hand in hand with a change in the ethos of the men and women in charge of our safety and security. That does not appear to be something that was contemplated by the powers-that-be. The National Police Service appears to be a well-oiled machine for the suppression of political discourse that displeases some of the high and mighty - or a weapon for the cowing of the downtrodden and marginalised. It beggars belief that the National Police Service's bosses would authorise the deployment of policemen in riot gear to a primary school, allegedly lob teargas at children and respond to the alleged teargas incident by, (a) denying it ever happened, and (b) justifying it by declaring that "children over the age of eight years can be charged in court for (sic) destruction of property."
It also beggars belief that, despite being warned that the demonstration was coming days in advance, the Cabinet Secretary for Lands, Housing and Urban Development would wait for the teargassing of students to declare that the land in question belongs to the Langata Road Primary School, without explaining how her Ministry and the County Government of Nairobi County could have missed the construction of a wall around the playground and why she and her Interior ministry colleague are still silent about the deployment of the police to the school in the first place.
Those with a conspiratorial paranoia about "corruption in high places" will allege that "it is someone high in the government" who grabbed, or tried to grab, that playground. They will advance no proof for their allegation, but they will be widely believed. It is in the nature of a largely illegitimate system that paranoid conspiracy theories gain credence. None is as illegitimate as the National Police Service and the manner it has been used throughout the history of this country.
The shameful display of police power today also erodes the legitimacy of the Jubilee government. If the playground was legitimately acquired, the person who acquired it should have declared the acquisition and the deployment of the police to protect his property would have been legitimate. But because it is likely that the acquisition involved malfeasance in the Ministry of Lands and the Nairobi City County Government, the deployment of the police raises more questions than I believe the Cabinet Secretary is willing to answer. Who ordered the police to Langata Road Primary School? Who ordered them to fire weapons at children?
Cabinet Secretary Nkaissery made many promises on the day he was appointed. He's a politician, so holding his feet to the fire over his promises is futile. But he is in charge of the policing apparatus of this nation. It is his responsibility to ensure that policing resources do not become the fulcrum with which great crimes will be perpetrated against the people by unknown and faceless people. This is something for which we can hold him to account. The same panga that cut short Joseph Ole Lenku's ministerial career is the same panga that will cut short Mr Nkaissery's if his police continues to behave as if it is still operating in the colonial era.
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