Your Excellency I am not one to promote or support incompetence, but after a hell of hard questions more still arise wondering why our frontiers continue to be a hell of experience for our civil servants. Policemen have perennially perished in Baragoi, Kapedo, Todenyang and more places in the vast Northern Frontier. Circumstances are always the same, they couldnt beat an ambush of weather hardened locals out to perform local cultural practices like raiding their neighbors cattle. Other civil servants posted to such places are usually those without godfathers and in dire need of a job. Mark you they are usually among the brightest but from your average poor financial background. Questions abound as to why Mandera attack happened? I will pose a different question? Why didnt the bus follow the normal protocol of vehicles having police escort? Why did they expose themselves to the risk of even a local bandit attack let alone terrorists? As we have seen the Licence of that Sacco in githurai suspended for the molestation of the young girl, this bus companys Licence need to be revoked for intentionally putting the lives of its passengers at risk, no this company needs to face full wrath of the law for willful endangerment and murder first degree for leaving Mandera on that treacherous journey without police escort. It is a fact that this is the normal practice of having vehicles escorted. Your Excellency Mr. President you were right we need to take responsibility for our security and move away from this gung-ho nonchalant attitude to our personal security. What you need to assure us is your undertaking that instead of giving Safaricom 15 billion to big brother urban centers this kind of money will be used or should have been used to secure our porous border posts. Your excellency we are sitting on a time bomb as the Late Kajwang would say may his soul RIP. Your excellency the devolved government gives you a very big untapped potential to enforce the nyumba kumi initiative, let the county governments empower their county Askari arms to Sherif status, give them budgetary support so that they can run their own local security operation as you concentrate on National Security. Kapedo should not have happened, 16 years ago as a fresh recruit out of Kiganjo some time in Mid 1999 fellow fresh recruits who I had shared a Barack with for 9 months died in similar fashion. They had just been posted and unfamiliar with the terrain and sent to pursue cattle raiders result was the death of 16 constables who had barely touched their first salary as policemen. Police headquarters said all policemen are trained equally and are upto the task but remember terrain training or adaptation is not something you can learn in college. The hazardous nature of terrain in Baragoi and other similar areas require special forces and not your average Kiganjo graduate.Why dont we learn from this and put in place better strategies when it comes to pursuing this cattle thieves. We are our own worst enemy when it comes to implementing plans and battle strategies. Everybody is calling for the revamping of the Interior Docket, maybe its time you gave in to this wish as at times perceptions that another individual will do a better job might just be what you need to regain legitimacy that you are actually ontop of things as the CIC. Give another person the job and then push for the nyumba kumi and you will have people behind you. There is a lot on your plate but for now you need to be reactive to the situation lest it spirals out of hand.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 02:39:42 +0000