Call of Duty.

I have heeded the call. I shall take responsibility. It is time I took the fight to the terrorists, wherever they may lurk. This is my call to arms to like-minded warriors for the soul of the nation.

No more!

I am very, very aware that my Commander-in-Chief has a less than rosy view of the disciplined forces he commands, and that is why he has asked me to play my rightful role in the fight against the terrorists. In my zeal to obey my Commander-in-Chief, and in solidarity with those who have also heeded the call, I have undertaken to set up my very own "community policing" apparatus. I can assure the worrywarts among you that it shall not morph into a rival for the Mungiki, the Forty Brothers, the Sungu-sungu, the Kamjesh or the Jeshi la Baba. No sir it won't.

Taking my cue from the helpful suggestions of the Senator of Nairobi City and the  Acting Director National Disaster Management Unit, a Superintendent of Police by the by, to "fight back," I have decided to acquire certain skills that will stand me in good stead when the terrorists come back. (Given the givens, you know, like the Commander-in-Chief's lack of overt love for  the boys and girls not-in-mufti, you can understand why I am following the expert advice of the Senator and that policeman, can't you?)

Obviously, I have to develop a healthy suspicion of those around me, just in case they happen to be terrorists, or they happen to be harbouring terrorists. The strange behaviour of my brothers means I have to subject their lives to a microscopic examination that will make the National Intelligence Service sit up and take notice. The younger one seems to be acquiring engineering degrees that are bafflingly applied in management. I wonder if this is a clue to his nefarious intentions. After all, the last time we were staring at the barrel of a gun, one of the terrorists was a lawyer, well-versed in the weaselly language of the High Court and similar suspicious dens of intrigue and murderous mayhem. So why is he getting so many engineering degrees? Does he want to build a dirty bomb in his basement? Does he have a basement? I must investigate - just to be sure.

Equally obviously, I have to have boiling kettles of water and always-on irons because I do not think my Commander-in-Chief is going to throw open the gates of the national armouries for me to take my pick of G3s and AKs. The next best weapons, in the wise words of my Senator, are hot hater and hot irons. I'll find a way of practicing the use of these weapons so that the next time the terrorists armed with machine guns, pistols, knives and suicide-bomb vests come a calling, I will douse them with hot water and slam them in the face with hot irons. I will be prepared. I will not die like a cockroach, Mr Superintendent of Police. I'm going to roll with the big dogs!

Of course, just to satisfy the call to duty by my Commander-in-Chief, I am going to become the biggest neighbourhood snitch. I'm going to snitch on the three young men who seem to have not discernible source of income to pay for the three-bedroomed maisonette that they rent next door, nor the fifteen-million-shilling Range Rover - the one with the five-litre V8 - that they tear around the neighbourhood in from three in morning going God-knows-where for God-knows-what purpose. I'm going to snitch on that Mama Mboga who is always smiling even when her loyal customers refuse to buy any of her sewerage-grown sukuma wiki. How can anyone smile so broadly every single day from morning to night if she wasn't identifying targets for the terrorists and simply imagining us being shot up or blown up to smithereens? She is a suspect alright.

But just in case all this fails, I am instructing both my loved ones and my enemies to blame me if the terrorists get me. Don't blame the Commander-in-Chief or his boys; they can't be everywhere all the time. The Commander-in-Chief said that we cannot have a single policeman for every citizen. It's just not possible. It ain't happening. So blame me. Say I wasn't brave enough. Say I wasn't counter-violent enough. Say I put myself deliberately in the line of fire. Why don't you just go ahead and call me a loser for dying and giving the Commander-in-Chief hives and a bad name. Don't make him write you letters of condolences. Say it was all my damn fault and let him get on with the business of sending fighter jets to blow up manyattas in Somalia or wherever.