Courageous police officer impresses Kavuludi

Hassan Galgalo during vetting in Nakuru, yesterday. [PHOTO:KIPSANG JOSEPH/Standard]

An officer with only Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) yesterday impressed the vetting panel for his courage and dedication to service.

Hassan Abdi who is in charge of Gilgil Weighbridge is among few police officers who have been awarded for excellent service.

Mr Abdi, who was born in 1962, said he joined the service as a police constable in 1986 after his father failed to pay his secondary school fees.

He said his father refused to sell some of the 200 cows he owned to pay his school fees.

“My father did not take me to school because he could not sell his only source of income,” said Abdi during cross-examination.

National Police Service Commission (NPSC) Chairman Johnston Kavuludi asked the officer what he had gained from serving in the police force.

“I was awarded a silver star by former President Mwai Kibaki for being courageous and dedicated in fighting bandits in Garissa in the year 2012,” he said.

Narrating to the panel chaired by Mr Kavuludi, Abdi said the banditry attacks on the Wajir-Garissa road had highly interrupted normal operations.

stop criminals

The issue, he said, was raised in Parliament by the area MP but no solution was found.

While based at Raya Police Station as a corporal, the officer said three lorries were attacked by bandits and after the owners reported, he decided to step in and stop the criminals.

Abdi told the panel that he asked his senior for permission to go and fight the criminals. Together with four other officers, they went after the attackers.

After driving 70km from Raya, they met a group suspected to have been Al Shabaab members who stopped the lorry he was driving in.

“I told my colleagues to dress in civilian. The OCPD was worried because we were only four but I was not shaken. I could not live to see locals being frightened,” he said, adding that he killed the commander of the gang.

In another incident in 2013, Abdi said ten officers from Garissa Police Station were killed by bandits. To tame the criminals, he requested for ten officers to help in conducting patrols, which improved security in the region.