Rot in immigration, police endangers Kenyan lives daily

Kenyans have grown tired of the media circus staged by the top brass of the immigration and the police departments who often make promises they don’t intend to keep.

The latest episode involves the return of suspected drug lords who were deported only a month ago, and the bungled search for them in places where they are known to have accomplices whom they have recruited into the drug business.

Just close to four weeks ago, Jane Waikenda, Director of the Immigration Department, took office with warnings to her officers to embrace change because her office won’t tolerate people who do not add value to the department.

David Kimaiyo, the Inspector-General of Police has, on his part, trotted out the old tired line that he was “deeply concerned with revelations that police remain the most corrupt institution in the country.”

Reports, last week, that a suspected drug kingpins sneaked back into the country through immigration barely a month after he was deported leads to the inescapable conclusion that Waikenda’s  officers weren’t much impressed by her warning.

This is why many public officials become overnight millionaires at the expense of the thousands, if not millions, of young and the not-so-young men and women ruined by narcotic drugs or who have lost life, limbs and property in terror attacks.

As far back as 1998 when hundreds of Kenyans lost their lives in a bomb blast at the American Embassy, there was credible evidence that the killers had smuggled their bomb-making materiel through Kenya’s’ porous borders. There were high hopes then that the departments responsible would be overhauled and reconstituted.

Tragically, nothing much happened. True, new equipment was bought and installed, but apart from subjecting law-abiding local and foreign travellers to meaningless searches, little changed on the ground.

In the recent past, particularly following the country’s entry into Somalia, Kenyans have been treated to a level of insecurity not experienced before in their history.

Today there is general unanimity that the recent killings in Mandera and Bungoma were fuelled by weapons, ammunition and mercenaries hired from Ethiopia and Uganda, respectively. 

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that these atrocities could have been stopped at source had the immigration and police officers worked in concert, and with the level of honesty required of people in whom the country has placed its trust. Given the latest developments, it seems logical to assume that the departments can’t be trusted to change themselves.

President Kenyatta should step in and ensure the two departments are radically changed in line with his government’s promise of transforming the country during his first term in office. For in the absence of real and clear security, it is worthless to talk about development or anything else.

Let it be noted, too, that the country doesn’t need the setting up of a commission of inquiry to decide what needs to be done to fix its security. Common sense dictates that all it would take is to institute thorough investigations — preferably with the help of foreign expertise — into the two departments, and let the chips fall where they may.