Martha, Admitting Failure Dosen't Help Anything...Stepping Aside Might

Martha says we're losing the war on corruption.

Really?

I have to wonder when she found that out. Is this her way of finally admitting that her office has failed to carry out one of its core duties of fighting corruption? I still recall that sometime last year the good lady from Gachugu called on the necessary authorities to slash the hefty pay the government was paying a man called Ringera to fight corruption. One year later Ringera is still paid the same amount...and this at a time when he has nothing to show for all that burden his salary has dumped on the Kenyan taxpayer. In fact, if a man who is supposed to fight corruption can't have the moral compass to sense that accepting a pay of 2.5 Million is in itself corrupt, then how do we expect him to stop those who share his kind of mentality?

Back to Martha. I was amused when I heard her say that we are losing the war on corruption. No. We are not losing the war. She is losing the war. And Ringera is losing the war. They are the two top officials in government charged with the responsibility to protect the taxpayer from the mammoth appetite of corrupt officials. So when Martha publicly says we have failed, I have to ask her this question: Martha, what do you expect us...the common man...to do?

It is becoming evident that Martha's attention has been diverted from her duties as the Minister for Constitutional Affairs to that of a full time candidate for president of Kenya. But if she can't stem corruption now, as a powerful minister with goodwill among many Kenyans, how will she do it when she is president? And if she can admit failure on the smaller matter of prosecuting obvious criminals, why should the nation thrust upon her bigger responsibilities?

Guys, Kenya stinks right now. A sense of hopelessness is creeping slowly on the people of the good nation. Just when we start complaining about taxes, they hit us with unga. When we complain about unga, they hit you with gas/petrol. We complain about petrol, they hit us with the media bill. And as we start grumbling about the media bill, they unleash the messes at the Kenya Tourism Board and Kenya Pipeline. Isn't this enough to make a man dizzy? And yet it took Martha this long to sense that we are losing this war?

No, Martha, this war is lost!

It would be nice if you can step aside and let a tougher woman/man take the fight to these sleazy thieves.

Can you, Martha?

Standard Bank Ghost Robbery Exposes Police Weakness

Kenya Police take a breather, looking exhausted: Outsmarted and outfoxed all the time by hardened criminals


In the early hours of yesterday morning (Kenyan time) there was a bizarre incident at the Standard Chartered Bank along Moi Avenue where a gang of robbers daringly attempted to execute a bank robbery in one of the most guarded and secure banks in East and Central Africa. (Security insiders will tell you that many of the special security measures at this Standard Chartered bank were put in place after a bank robbery in the 80s—then called the mother of all bank robberies—where thugs got away with a record amount of cash. But that is a story for another day.)

The drama that unfolded at the bank most of yesterday morning must leave Kenyans with many questions as to the ability of our police force to win the war against crime by any other means other than shooting and killing every suspect-mingled with the innocent—in sight (as has been happening for some time now.)

Apparently the robbers’ well executed plan went wrong when an alert cashier (a lady) jumped back from entering a lift that she was being pushed into by the thugs. She raised the alarm and this is what ended up frustrating the would-robbery.

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Police arrived and surrounded the bank waiting for the robbers to come out.

Now this is the point where things started going wrong for the police.

What would you do if you were stuck inside a bank surrounded by policemen with drawn guns on the ready? Take a hostage or two to shield yourself on the way out? Well that one does not work in Kenya because chances are that the police will still open fire killing the hostage and you. Yet this is what the police expected the robbers to do.

Luckily for the thugs, the police made it very easy for them. It was decided to evacuate the building so that the police can storm in and get the thugs. The robbers did not need to be rocket scientists to simply dump their weapons somewhere in the building and come out with the members of staff who were being evacuated and many analysts believe that that is exactly how they got away.

In frustration the police arrested the poor guard at the bank who had been tied up by the thugs claiming that he was an accomplice to an inside job. Nobody asked themselves why he raised the alarm when the bank robbers were still in the building. A police spokesman even said on national TV that the bank robbery was poorly planned. I don’t agree. In fact bags full of money were recovered from the building by police. That just tells you that something so small went wrong otherwise the robbers would have gotten away without firing a single shot.

This incident more than any other brings into sharp focus one of the reasons why the police have such a difficult time dealing with criminals. The truth is that they seem to be out-thought and out-foxed most of the time. Sincerely, just think about it for a moment. How can you match the wits of an Eastlands hardened criminal who has grown up in Nairobi all his life with a policeman who was recruited from El Wak and is in charge of giving orders in situations like that of yesterday?

In the new police force Kenyans should build after the current political dinosaurs go home. This issue should be given much though and under-cover operations should be stepped up dramatically if the war on crime is ever to be won. Police recruitment policies should also be reviewed so that the force can attract the right kind of people who will help them begin to outsmart the increasingly sophisticated 21st century criminal.


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