Saturday's chaos in Embu, where a meeting attended by Deputy President Kithure Kindiki descended into stone-throwing, arson and death, should alarm every Kenyan who still believes in the rule of law.
Six vehicles were confirmed by the police to have been torched, one person was killed, and the country watched as the meeting turned into a free for all battlefield. That such brazenness could unfold around the deputy president himself tells us how far goonism has advanced.
The Opposition has borne the brunt of this menace for months. Rigathi Gachagua's convoy has been stoned in Nakuru, tear-gassed in Kikuyu, and attacked in Kakamega, each time with police accused of standing by or arriving late.
The Linda Mwananchi mobilisation in Homa Bay ended in violence, a torched vehicle and assaulted journalists. On the very day that Embu burned, opposition leaders, including Kalonzo Musyoka, Justin Muturi and Eugene Wamalwa, came under a hail of stones in Garissa, an attack Muturi called an attempted assassination. Not even the presidency has been spared: A vehicle in President Ruto's own convoy was stoned in Emurua Dikirr, and youths tried to block the First Lady's convoy in Siaya.
Sustained public outcry has changed nothing. Police statements condemning each incident have become ritual, issued and forgotten within days. That inaction has emboldened the miscreants. Goons now behave as though violence carries no consequence, because for the most part it does not. The State's monopoly on the legitimate use of force is slipping, incident by incident, into the hands of hired mobs, while officers watch.
Gachagua has repeatedly alleged that special squads within the police bypass the normal chain of command to enable this violence. Whether or not that claim is provable, the pattern it describes fits what Kenyans are witnessing; attackers who strike with impunity, disappear before arrests are made, and reappear at the next rally.
This must stop, and it can only stop if the government stops politicising security. Goons do not materialise from nowhere. They are recruited, organised and paid, usually by politicians who then condemn the violence they financed. These people live among us. Communities know them, and in many cases so do the police. What is missing is not evidence but the will to act on it.
The public's reluctance to report such incidents reflects a deeper trust deficit with the police, one the police have done little to repair. As Kenya heads into another election cycle, that deficit is dangerous. The lesson of 2007/2008 is that political violence left unaddressed does not stay contained; it escalates.
The government and the National Police Service carry the responsibility to reverse this dangerous trend now, before the country slides further into a jungle where whoever hires the most goons sets the rules. Statements will not do it. Arrests will.
