Perils of Propping Partisan Police Force

If Major Hussein Ali ever thought he is the overall boss then he better stop living the lie and smell the coffee. Ali must be aware that AP Commandant Kinuthia Mbugua is an authority unto himself answerable to those calling shots.

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.

Constipation from Five-Course Humble Pie

You can fool Kenyans sometimes but not the world all the times, Bob Marley could have as well sung. Saitoti must be still smarting from an exclusive five-course sumptuous meal of humble pie.

What a colourful and dramatic overnight climbdown? The local bravado from the ruling class melted in Geneva and all the hitherto brickbats at Prof Alston speedily transformed into accolades. Last weak Prof Saitoti derided Alston as a shame to the title professor and not worth the reference and at Geneva he hailed Alston’s recommendations as CONSTRUCTIVE and USEFUL.

Patriots had egged Saitoti and Mutula to call Prof Alston bluff in defense of our so-called sovereignty. To them damn all the global village buzz, we are independent and capable of butchering our own. Well, not quite as the world will not sit back to see us self-destruct. Forget all the balderdash about two wrongs making a right ala Iraq and Pakistan.

Exotic lies
Living beautiful lies only succeeds in eternal embarrassment. Without the international community we would be having no country to pride ourselves with. We lost all the moral fibre after bastardizing a people’s democracy in 2007. Continuing to live in denial will only expand the circumference of your ego, period.

Make no mistake, militias must be stopped dead on their tracks. Mungiki's barbaric beheadings is as unacceptable as officially sanctioned police brutality and extra-judicial slayings. You cannot use Mungiki to fool the world in covering state sponsored anarchy. Rule of law is what separates from inhabitants of the jungle.

What an obtuse scale of embarrassment to have factions of the same government export their division abroad? Until the scoundrels come to terms with the naked fact that it is NOT-BUSINESS-AS-USUAL, we continue the bumpy circular rise into oblivion.

Damn consultation
We are so divided and at war with each other so much so that even a foreigner like Prof Alston refers to the fissures between the coalition partners so casually. But expect smart Kenyans to rationalize any rot thrown at them. We baptize impunity with all exotic names but the monster remains just that IMPUNITY as it mutates to claim us all.

Well, the paper patriots can threaten fire and brimstone of all shapes and colour. But Saitoti must have seen it coming in his climb down. The hitherto bravado and attack on the messenger while glossing over the message would have left his face neatly pasted with eggs.

Cheap Pride: Sh.1m a Minute Defending Kenya

Plastic patriotism and sovereignty must be our most expensive commodity in Kenya right now. Otherwise we would not be sending a fractious delegation of 30 joy riders who will only address the UN council on human rights in Geneva for only 5 minutes.

And the bill, well, Kenyans have no qualms coughing out 5m to pamper 5 hard working ministers with a busload of busybodies. Why not show the UN that we value our murderous ways and tell them to lay off our own festival of flesh and blood. If anything the police only killed Kenyans and no foreigners.

Our sovereignty is priceless and we will do anything ORTHODOX or otherwise to defend it. Prof Alston can wax legal with his Congo and Cuba reports but he must be told off by our own smiling but superlative legal minds.

Two wrongs only need a Kenyan mirror to make an obtuse right. Alston must hunt down Bush and Rumsfeld for desecrating Iraq before he turns his evil eye on peaceful Kenya. Woe unto you who derides cheap options that fly like blaming the messenger while conveniently glossing over the message.

Moral authority
Let Prof Kiarie Kunuthia show Alston what a real PhD means. Yes, the policemen killed on his watch but that was Kenyan blood they shed which is none of Alston’s business. Rule of the law is only quoted among the weak-hearted not progressive and industrious nations like Kenya.

We must rally behind our leaders in defending our national integrity and identity. Only scoundrels mouth platitudes laden with in patriotism. The 2007 elections may have been flawed but we retain an overflowing moral authority to defend Kenya.

Add that the unique maturity to sort our parallel government positions in Geneva and you get a picture of a country overwhelmed with patriotism and objectivity. Nani kama sisi? HAKUNA.

Mutula, Tell Those Hypocrites We Can Handle Our Affairs

Mutula, Saitoti and Wako are off to an important meeting. Those three guys are going out there to defend the Kenyan government against accusations of orchestrated police brutality, bordering on heninous acts like extra-judicial killings and other acts so despicable they've warranted the intervention of the international community.

As the three gentlemen go out there, I've been stunned by the discord displayed by the government regarding Professor Helston's report. It is true that the ODM should have been consulted over this matter so that a coordinated and agreed upon response be formulated. I however think it was wrong for the ODM to come out and essentially walk away from what initial response of the government. There must be matters that we can handle differently, especially where we deal with hypocritical entities like the Western watchdog institutions.

Before anybody accuses me of condoning the mass killings that went on in Kenya and the troubling extra-judicial killings that may still be going on, let me say that I deplore any acts that are not in comformity with the laws of our land. What I can't stand is the hypocricy of an international community that will let a man like George Bush go free after killing thousands of Iraqis and flaggrantly trampling on international law to attack another state while calling on Kibaki to defend himself. Why is Kenya called to account and not the United States?

And wasn't it just recently that they arrested Ms. Kabuye, the aide to President Kagame, accusing her of involvement in the unfortunate acts that sparked the killings in Rwanda? Tell me again why they would want to come after this lady and not Donald Rumsfeld and the bunch of Neo-cons in the U.S. who thought out and sanctioned the war that has left the Middle East in flames. What is the difference.

Look, Kenya is a sovereign state that can hadnle its affairs just fine. This crap about Kenya walking on the brink of collapse and becoming a failed state is rubbish. Our democratic institutions are alive even though they need to be streamlined and made to work in a more efficient manner. What we need to do is make the Judiciary, Parliament and the Press function in a manner reflective of the existance of a vibrant free-market democracy.

We will do it.

So, Bwana Mutula, go look those hypocrites in the eye and tell them to go to hell. But you may want to know that when you come back home we will demand answers from you, Saitoti and Wako over what reallly happened? We will want to know who instituted the silent policy of killings within the police force and how many Kenyans have lost their lives in such a fashion. In the end, we will demand that the chief of police and all those who knew about this matter but kept quiet be held accountable...here in Kenya.

For now, show those hypocrites what we are made of, will you?

God bless Kenya!

Celebrating Madaraka Without Mamlaka

Another Madaraka day is here with us folks. Predictably Kenyans will be reminded they have been independent for 46 years albeit on paper without commensurate POWER and RESPONSIBILITY. It was 46 years ago and remains so today that Madarak was an event that merely replaced white colonialists with an indigenous brute albeit black.

All the fossilized leadership has to parade during the ceremony is nothing but nostalgia galore. Look around you and all you see is a painful dearth of any home-grown tangible contribution to define and distinguish Kenya from any institutions inherited from the colonialists.

These past and present scoundrels only sought power for its raw sake. And they are busy perpetuating its divisive traits over a smoldering Kenya. The many Kenyans disenchanted with the status quo and who are brave enough to shout will be promptly locked up, thanks to the suffocating colonial legal relics of yore which are being cleverly guarded.

Inverted priorities
The present leadership thrives on parallel truths that they shamelessly package as truth. Today’s celebration offers them yet another opportunity to gloat over their strangulation prowess over us. Forget basic priorities like security and settling the IDPs but expect superlative enumeration of phantom progress that only resides within the circumference of their fraudulent heads.

What is more, topology associate professor Kiarie has gone further and called Prof Philip Alston bluff and reminded him he is not worth the lofty title. Reason, poor Alston dared question the rogue policemen who went on extra-judicial killings spree on Saitoti’s watch.

We collectively hate the ugly face of truth, don’t we? Just ask new political boy on the judicial block, one Mutula Kilonzo. We may choose to conveniently repeat all the lies to ourselves till the lips crack, but the world and Geneva knows better that we are only expanding our egos.

Prof Alston touched raw nerves and our own smiling Wako is ready to defend himself. Meanwhile police boss Ali has offered to donate the Kenyan standards of investigation reminding him that one month isn’t enough to probe even chicken theft. The phrase verifiable facts can be reflected on Kenyan mirror to give a very different meaning.

Happy Madaraka day wherever you are folks.