Three
years ago today, at almost the precise time I started writing this
post, the man whose sperm was responsible for producing me was dying.
It was ironic that a man who had survived so many threats and attempts on his life including one serious one in the 70s when somebody put slow acting but deadly poison in his office tea would die in his quiet rural home at the ripe age of 75 far away from all the dark forces that had threatened him for no other reason other than being a straight cop. Actually the only reason he survived the poisoning was the quick action of my late mother who happened to be a medical professional and was at home when he suddenly collapsed with serious pains in his stomach.
It was ironic that a man who had survived so many threats and attempts on his life including one serious one in the 70s when somebody put slow acting but deadly poison in his office tea would die in his quiet rural home at the ripe age of 75 far away from all the dark forces that had threatened him for no other reason other than being a straight cop. Actually the only reason he survived the poisoning was the quick action of my late mother who happened to be a medical professional and was at home when he suddenly collapsed with serious pains in his stomach.
To
be very honest with you my relationship with my late dad was often
rocky and it took me many years to understand the hard disciplinarian
who often confused the boundaries between the police station where he
worked and his home. Still I ended up loving him like any son would love
a father. And in the end I will be forever proud to carry the name of a
man who was prepared to die for his principals (not many of those in
our banana republic).
The man kept on repeating that the standards and the discipline of the police we had inherited from the colonials (he joined the force in the 1950s) and which they had taken many years to establish had been eroded very quickly by politics. He always added that it would be impossible to restore the police to what it was supposed to be because the rot had grown into a cancer that would not be removed without killing the patient.
As I watch the current vetting of police officers and the crime wave sweeping across our country today, I remember the old man and his words always spoken with bitter disappointment.
Without boring you with details (you can read them all and much more in my book Dark Secrets of the Kenyan Presidency) the final nail on the coffin of the old disciplined police force was driven in by the Jomo Kenyatta administration in the 70s when widespread blood oaths were administered amongst willing senior police officers. The oaths were to ensure loyalty to president Kenyatta’s administration at all costs. Taking the oath was a ticket to untold riches because nothing you did and no corruption would be prosecuted as long as you were on the list of loyal officers.
My dad’s colleagues viewed him as a stupid fool for strongly resisting all efforts to get him to take the oath. Virtually all of them ended up taking it and as a young man growing up I wondered why all our family friends were so fabulously rich and we were just average. Later when I discovered the truth I agreed with the assessment of his intelligence by colleagues. I don’t any more otherwise Kumekucha would not exist would it?
With this kind of heads up why should anybody be surprised about a police officer’s account having millions of shillings whose source cannot be accounted for? Why should it be a shock to Kenyans that a police officer whose take-home is barely Kshs 50,000 owns prime property in Nairobi? And remember that is the property he was careless with and many of them have lots of other property and assets under the names of their wives, mothers and other relatives.
Well folks I am sad to report that it is now pay back time. Serious economic hardships and careless upbringing by parents have driven many Kenyans into serious crime. Many of the young men in crime today are much better educated and knowledgeable than our cops and so the result is an unprecedented crime wave sweeping right across the country. In any case it is no secret that most policemen (including one who appeared for vetting and denied that he owned rental houses in a Nairobi suburb) have been known to regularly aid and then split the loot with criminals.
The long and short of it is that we are in serious trouble as a nation.
Just to give you a small illustration to drive the point home. In all my years on this earth I have never been a victim of crime. Luck mostly but I am also paranoid about my personal security (what do you expect from a cop’s son?). But in 2013 alone I have fallen victim of serious crime twice. An informant who lives in Mombasa tells me that he has lived in the Likoni area for years (and his family for at least 2 generations) and their only problem has been house burglaries and occasional muggings of drunks. But in Likoni last week alone there were three armed robberies of shops (two people were shot and died) and 3 incidents of suspected terrorist lobbying grenades into police vehicles. IN ONE WEEK ALONE!
The story right across most parts of the country is the same.
That my dear friends is the state of affairs in our dear banana republic.
Terrorist who came back from the dead
The GOK has insisted that all the terrorists involved in the September 21st Westgate shopping Mall attack were killed. Well in a fascinating development local newspapers have reported the testimony in court by a brave Administration policeman a Mr Ali Miraj who told a Nairobi court on Thursday that he shot one of the terrorists in the leg but he quickly limped away. Read his testimony. Western intelligence sources have identified the name of the man and have revealed that they are currently in hot pursuit of him in Southern Somalia (more details including his photograph in my latest raw notes and Intelligence report as well).
Well a positive identification of the same man seems to have been made using footage from CCTV cameras at Westgate and foreign intelligence records. Apparently the man has been under surveillance for quite some time now. As you read this scores of agents from the West are pursuing him in Southern Somalia.
The only logical explanation for this is that he died at Westgate but miraculously resurrected, albeit still with his leg injury, somewhere in Southern Somalia. Wow!!
The man kept on repeating that the standards and the discipline of the police we had inherited from the colonials (he joined the force in the 1950s) and which they had taken many years to establish had been eroded very quickly by politics. He always added that it would be impossible to restore the police to what it was supposed to be because the rot had grown into a cancer that would not be removed without killing the patient.
As I watch the current vetting of police officers and the crime wave sweeping across our country today, I remember the old man and his words always spoken with bitter disappointment.
Without boring you with details (you can read them all and much more in my book Dark Secrets of the Kenyan Presidency) the final nail on the coffin of the old disciplined police force was driven in by the Jomo Kenyatta administration in the 70s when widespread blood oaths were administered amongst willing senior police officers. The oaths were to ensure loyalty to president Kenyatta’s administration at all costs. Taking the oath was a ticket to untold riches because nothing you did and no corruption would be prosecuted as long as you were on the list of loyal officers.
My dad’s colleagues viewed him as a stupid fool for strongly resisting all efforts to get him to take the oath. Virtually all of them ended up taking it and as a young man growing up I wondered why all our family friends were so fabulously rich and we were just average. Later when I discovered the truth I agreed with the assessment of his intelligence by colleagues. I don’t any more otherwise Kumekucha would not exist would it?
With this kind of heads up why should anybody be surprised about a police officer’s account having millions of shillings whose source cannot be accounted for? Why should it be a shock to Kenyans that a police officer whose take-home is barely Kshs 50,000 owns prime property in Nairobi? And remember that is the property he was careless with and many of them have lots of other property and assets under the names of their wives, mothers and other relatives.
Well folks I am sad to report that it is now pay back time. Serious economic hardships and careless upbringing by parents have driven many Kenyans into serious crime. Many of the young men in crime today are much better educated and knowledgeable than our cops and so the result is an unprecedented crime wave sweeping right across the country. In any case it is no secret that most policemen (including one who appeared for vetting and denied that he owned rental houses in a Nairobi suburb) have been known to regularly aid and then split the loot with criminals.
The long and short of it is that we are in serious trouble as a nation.
Just to give you a small illustration to drive the point home. In all my years on this earth I have never been a victim of crime. Luck mostly but I am also paranoid about my personal security (what do you expect from a cop’s son?). But in 2013 alone I have fallen victim of serious crime twice. An informant who lives in Mombasa tells me that he has lived in the Likoni area for years (and his family for at least 2 generations) and their only problem has been house burglaries and occasional muggings of drunks. But in Likoni last week alone there were three armed robberies of shops (two people were shot and died) and 3 incidents of suspected terrorist lobbying grenades into police vehicles. IN ONE WEEK ALONE!
The story right across most parts of the country is the same.
That my dear friends is the state of affairs in our dear banana republic.
Terrorist who came back from the dead
The GOK has insisted that all the terrorists involved in the September 21st Westgate shopping Mall attack were killed. Well in a fascinating development local newspapers have reported the testimony in court by a brave Administration policeman a Mr Ali Miraj who told a Nairobi court on Thursday that he shot one of the terrorists in the leg but he quickly limped away. Read his testimony. Western intelligence sources have identified the name of the man and have revealed that they are currently in hot pursuit of him in Southern Somalia (more details including his photograph in my latest raw notes and Intelligence report as well).
Well a positive identification of the same man seems to have been made using footage from CCTV cameras at Westgate and foreign intelligence records. Apparently the man has been under surveillance for quite some time now. As you read this scores of agents from the West are pursuing him in Southern Somalia.
The only logical explanation for this is that he died at Westgate but miraculously resurrected, albeit still with his leg injury, somewhere in Southern Somalia. Wow!!
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Kinganjo police college, call it a current breeding ground for future corrupt junior and senior officers, should be shut down for a year, demolished - dismantled 100% - and a brand new training facility for recruits - non-commissioned police officers - constructed in its place within the same period.
ReplyDeleteAnd another facility for police cadets - commissioned officers - built in a different location, preferably in a region very far away from Kiganjo and surrounding locations.
Then the recruiting, selection, training, post-Kingajo police training, routine supervision and evaluation, assignments, disciplinary measures, demotion, termination, prosecution, etc. be out sourced to an affiliate of (British) Metropolitan Police Service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or Israeli Police until such a time the Kenya police force gets out the current ICU.
Otherwise, the rot cancer within the entire police force will continue to fester for the two decades.
Police top brass continue to deliberately betray the public's trust by blatantly failing to uphold law and order in urban and rural areas of the country.
ReplyDeleteCorruption among high ranking police officers is the ultimate cause and facilitator of rampant crime waves, incompetence, mediocrity, insecurity, cliques of rogue officers, and countless other societal ills.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact, corrupt senior and junior police officers are worse than domestic and foreign enemies of the state.
It goes without saying, corrupt police officers are the wooden horse carrying one of the most deadliest kind of plague.
Therefore, they must be stopped, contained and dealt with by all means necessary or else impunity, injustice, lawlessness and a widespread rotten banana republic mentality will remain the order of day.
It has always been said that a country's security situation is as good as the country's police force and other security agencies. Couldn't agree more with the aforementioned..
ReplyDeleteThe security climate in the whole country is real appalling to say the least. And what a very sad state of affairs as far as public safety and national security are concerned.
Corruption within the police force is the mother of all evils.
ReplyDeleteChris,
ReplyDeleteWe, the people, should write a note to ourselves to remind us 24/7 about what would we do - to day, everyday and in the future - in order to help expose, shame, arrest and prosecute corrupt police officers within the entire force. We, the people, should be reminded that such a act is our patriotic duty.
While a cartel of wealthy - very corrupt - senior police officers are known to have hidden many of their ill gotten assets and stash in various places, forms, second party names, etc.
ReplyDeleteIronically there has not been any backlash in an overwhelming sense from the general public, the dormant 'internal affairs' - an entity that is responsible for strictly policing the national police while the police goes about their normal duties of policing the rest of the general population.
The judicial system, media houses, religious leaders, civic society, NGOs, the so-called parliament, et al, have not spoken out at all against systemic corruption within the higher echelon of the police force.
Nor has there been a single directive from the office of the director of public prosecution, director of the CID, including the powers that be within the inner circles of the State House.
Well, interestingly enough, many Kenyans seem to have not taken note of the deeply ingrained rot and corruption that has been part and parcel of the country's force police force for the last forty-five years.
Oh woe unto us, the people, if we stumble or hesitate to stand up against a culture of deep corruption that has been programed to harvest exclusive rewards for the police top brass.
Hell has always laid sulphureous eggs of corruption and impunity within the police force since June of 1965, and sadly they have hatched and continue to do so under a protective shield sanctioned by well connected senior police officers, powerful civil servants, politicians and businessmen/women who are perpetually in search of campaign finances and funds for influencing political and personal agendas where critical issues are concerned at the local, regional and national levels.
ReplyDeleteMy dad's colleagues viewed him as a stupid fool for strongly resisting all efforts to get him to take the oath.
ReplyDeleteThe most hated cops by fellow cops, including crooked politicians, kingpins and underlings from the underworld, are the incorruptible cops who were and are known to be highly allergic to bribery, and very resistant to being on the take, better known as the payroll.
Chris' old man must have been one among some of the old school senior cops with an ingrained old school loyalty that was instilled in them during basic training at Kiganjo, and throughout their postings - frequent transfers - and consequent promotions.
Those were days or during an era where a fair number of able bodied young men joined the police in order to serve their country in a patriotic manner rather than use their rank, undue influence, badge, guns, and dirty tricks for monetary gain.
The rest is a history of shameful episodes where a few bad apples and several rotten bananas among the top brass ended up corrupting the rest of the police officers, rank and file to the point where deadly side effects and unimagined consequences continue to be felt four and half decades later.
That is why it is easy to conclude that senior police officers like Chris' old man were targeted, persecuted and never promoted beyond the rank of superintendent of police, or senior superintendent of police if they were luck to survive the odds.
Unfortunately, the recent vetting process was all smoke and mirrors because it was nothing more than a futile exercise in recycling undesirables - officers - from one place to another, or promotion from one lower rank to a higher rank.
And that is why 'the more things change, the more they have remained the same' within the entire police force, hence, an eight-hundred pound silverback gorilla roaming the corrupted corridors and offices at Vigilance House will continue to cast a heavy dark shadow over the entire police force, rest of the security agencies and country at large.
Wow! It's a kind of a miracle that Kenyans still endure the deadly malice of corruption, crime, violence, hate and widespread impunity that reverberate from various fronts at a time when it is evident that the nation is very serious trouble. So, the question is, where have the good cops, patriotic citizens, upright politicians, hardworking and ethical civil servants, and non greedy businessmen/women have gone?
ReplyDelete