Hire trained guards, not any ‘mzee’, Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinett challenges schools

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinett has ruled out deployment of police officers to all schools across the country and asked the institutions' heads to employ trained guards.

He also said secondary school heads will be consulted during future recruitment of police officers because they know inside information on the candidates who apply for the jobs.

Addressing the over 7,000 principals gathered in Mombasa yesterday, Mr Boinett said there will be no special training for the school guards stressing on the need for community policing and enhanced intelligence gathering among communities.

"No police for each school. I am afraid. That can only happen when there is an intelligence that something nasty will happen," he said.

Boinett said the responsibility of securing school is on the heads of schools.

"You should be working in partnership with local community," he said.

The IG accused school heads of employing 'old clueless wazees' to man schools.

"The guards you employ are not well trained. Now you want us to train them? I am sorry we may not have the space within the existing facilities to train them. Why can't you hire trained guards? Not just an old mzee. Get someone, at least, with some basic knowledge on security," challenged Boinett.

He said there are over 7,000 secondary schools and another 25,000 primary schools against only 80,000 police officers.

"How many nursery schools are there? And universities? Colleges? If we deploy police it shall mean that we shall shut down all police stations to come and secure all schools," he noted.

He spoke after principals demanded to be given adequate security as the terror gang now targets learning institutions.

One of the principals also demanded an explanation on why it took more than eight hours for the police to end the killings at Garissa University College.

But the police chief defended the operation saying, "The truth is that whereas the response should have been faster, they did the best within the circumstances."

He said the police have learnt lessons that they need to work 'more collaboratively and swiftly.'
"Out of 10 terror incidents we foil nine of them. Garissa was the one of the 10 cases. But we do nut scream on rooftops whenever we foil attacks. Some of us don't shout or complain. We just work," he said.