Let’s review how we handle insecurity

We must say it upfront and from every available rooftop. The state of insecurity in this country is good reason for self-reflection for each and every Kenyan. From Lamu to Turkana, all is not well. In fact, the situation is so bad that the political leadership of Turkana has issued an ultimatum to the central Government to fix insecurity in the region failure to which they have threatened to mobilse the local community to stop the oil exploration exercise in that region.

The situation is so bad that leaders at the Coast are grabbing every opportunity to tear each other apart in public in a never-ending blame game. As leaders issue ultimatums and others fight each other, there are those who are busy pointing fingers at the President and arguing that the buck stops with him. That is true. There are others who want the entire top security team fired for manifest failure in service delivery. They too have a point.

There are other Kenyans, especially politicians in the Opposition, who see a big opportunity in the country’s insecurity to make demands to Government, including calls to step down.

Unfortunately for us all, as the leaders engage in all manner of shouting matches, the enemy is taking full advantage of the mess and spreading terror with blatant impunity. And in all this, the ordinary Kenyan has been gripped by fear, not sure what would happen if or when the enemy strikes.

Our state of insecurity calls for sobriety in leadership across the political divide. And instead of our security officers constantly reacting to criminal incidents, they must use the tools and skills they are equipped with to pro-actively stop these attacks.

As long as they are unable to detect these crimes before they happen; as long as our officers are either not well equipped or are grossly demotivated that they cannot work effectively; so long as the public attitude is such that we must lay blame on our security establishment for every criminal act; and as long as senior leaders both at the national and county governments cannot take a bipartisan approach in the management of security affairs, we are slowly but surely losing control of sections of this country to criminal gangs.

The goings-on in Lamu are particularly disturbing. The Government has deployed security teams from both the Kenya Police Service and the Kenya Defence Forces. In fact, special squads of the KDF have been on the ground in the region to flush out suspected terrorists from their hideout. But even with such a heavy concentration of security forces in a relatively small area, the attackers have been bold enough to strike and take out police officers on duty.

The big question in the mind of every Kenyan is: “If our police officers have become a target for the gangs, who is safe?” Our position is that part of the answer to this question lies with all of us. Security is so crucial for our individual and collective survival that it cannot be entirely left in the hands of a few people in leadership or in the security service.

We must make a very conscious decision at a very personal level to take individual and collective security a lot more seriously. It has been said before, and we will say it here again, that our police officers cannot be in every corner of the country at every time. Organised crime does not take place in a vacuum. It is planned and executed in areas where law-abiding citizens live and work.

Our challenge to the country’s political leadership, our security agencies and ordinary Kenyans is to review relationships in regard to security. It is in everybody’s interest that suspicious characters are immediately reported to security agencies. It is in everybody’s interest that security agencies respond swiftly and professionally to tips from the public. And it is in the best interest of all us that our leaders put aside their personal differences and take a non-partisan approach in handling security matters.

In the absence of a review of these relationships, blame-games will continue, criminals will continue to take advantage of every opportunity arising from leadership conflicts and innocent Kenyans will continue to die in the hands of criminals.