After prison break, let’s go after all criminals who continue to terrorise the citizenry

One of the three terror convicts who escaped from Kamiti being returned to the facility after they were arrested in Mwingi, Kitui County on their way to Somalia.

Let me state up front that I do not believe the news stories that dangerous terrorists, including one convicted for his role in the slaughter of 150 Kenyans at the Garissa University, simply walked out of prison, as warders looked the other way.

I mean, no warder, even the most heartless, would jeopardise the safety and wellbeing of fellow Kenyans by unleashing such crooks in our midst for financial or other inducements. That’s not what Kenyan warders are.

Rather, I am persuaded that those ex-convicts who escaped, allegedly by drilling a hole through the wall using their bare fingers have supernatural abilities like casting a spell on those who look in their direction.

Put another way, I think the warders did all that was humanly possible to keep the convicts in custody—one had been sentenced to serve 40 years in prison—which is why some efforts had been made to help the inmates cope, like draping the walls with colourful wallpaper, just to cheer them.

And wallpaper would also serve as a better space for hiding contraband than the other holes that inmates use to stash their loot.

I hear the wall renovations necessitated the importation of masonry tools into the prison. That, too, is a cock-and-bull story. For if the prison authorities can hire fundis of questionable character to work as artisans, and in the process work towards setting free dangerous convicts, then they deserve to be jailed for criminal dereliction of duty.

The lingering question: why has Prezzo UK not fired or jailed all those charlatans who continue to terrorise Kenyans, every new day, in other sectors of government?