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.