You Missed This
Forget all those glossy proposals by Ali to modernize Kenya’s police force. Retired Judge Philip Ransley’s task force, just like the myriad commissions before him, is nothing but a stop-gap measure meant to fool Kenyans of an apparent motion with no intended movement.
Any member of the disciplined forces would readily tell you that Kinuthia’s contradiction of his boss Ali amounts to gross insubordination. But who cares, Kinuthia is on the right side of power. He knows Ali would never dare question him lest the police boss wants to kiss his post goodbye.
True Kinuthia said AP operations are crucial to security in every corner of the country. But wait a minute, between the regular police and AP who is better trained to cope with complex security challenges outside raiding changaa dens? No prizes for guessing because it is all politics, period.
Political errands
APs are symptoms of acute dearth of any progressive post-colonial reforms. They are relics of colonialism that the black boss inherited from the departing white boss with the exclusive purpose to subjugate his own people. No wonder the villagers aptly call them TP for TRIBAL POLICE.
Kinuthia Mbugua must have thought of himself being very intellectual in proposing more autonomous police divisions including border police. Nothing could be further from the truth in his quest to propose parallel command lines that will leave him more powerful at the expense of the wider good.
The world over, a country’s police force must have a central command with different specialized divisions answerable to one authority. But not in Kenya where modernization acquires a whole new meaning exclusively designed to serve parochial interests.
Just look back to 2007 and see how our APs are perfect vehicles to run political errands.
Tribal police
Only within our deceptive shores do you find such skewed logic spewed to package division as source of strength. All those grandstanding about merger of competing police units to foster effective service delivery are just clever tricks to keep us engaged as the looters scheme on their next prey at our expense.
Kenya’s gatekeepers will not allow tranaformatio of the police with commensurate power to operate independently. Doing that will deny the power to unleash official militia to further their narrow political agenda.
We have been warned of Armageddon come 2012 by both Judges Kriegler and Waki should there be no comprehensive reforms before then. Well, it is just about 1000 days to go. OLE WETU.Kumekucha
