Police ignore court, plan graduation

By Cyrus Ombati and Kurian Musa

Nyeri, Kenya: President Uhuru Kenyatta will Friday officiate the first pass out parade of more than 3,000 police recruits at the Kiganjo Police College in Nyeri County.

Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo confirmed the President’s attendance when he attended a rehearsal of the exercise on Tuesday.

The graduation will be the first in a series that is planned this month and will see over 7,000 recruits released to the market.

Those of Administration Police will graduate on April 17 and General Service Unit on April 24.

Kimaiyo said the training period for police recruits will be reduced to nine months from the current 15.

“I wish to mention here that after a thorough audit of the curriculum, we have decided that the course content can be covered in nine months as was the case before and the remaining period be covered through mentoring in the field during the probationary period,” he said.

This, he said will enable recruitment once every year in a deliberate move by the Government to increase the number of police officers even as the country grapples with numerous security challenges.

“I wish to remind the graduants and everyone else that as officers of a disciplined service, our loyalty to the President and Commander-In-Chief will always be unquestionable and as such no one is expected to politic and anything contrary is serious breach of discipline,” he said.

The IG said those interested in such have the liberty to “ship out” and engage in full time politics.

Interior Co-ordination Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku said the recruits will help beef up security as crime rate sky rockets.

Highest figures

 “This   is   a   10 per cent increase in the number of police officers. This growth is one of the highest figures in the world,” he said.

Meanwhile, Plans for the pass out are still ongoing in defiance of a court order that restrained the ceremony.

An order issued by Industrial Court Judge David Marete stopped the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) chairman Johnstone Kavuludi, Kimaiyo and the Government authorities spearheading the pass out from passing out the recruits, who were allegedly never recruited or passed the initial period of training that other recruits had undertaken.