Police mishandled Raila return resulting in needless conflict

 

Friday’s confrontation between the police and NASA supporters was yet another reminder that we need to do more to ease the post-election tensions and focus on healing the country after the divisive poll. The running battles between the two groups did not just result in deaths and injuries, they also disrupted traffic in Nairobi, inconveniencing thousands of commuters.

There will be recriminations about who was to blame from yesterday’s stand-off that took a political hue when the police announced they would not allow NASA supporters to welcome their leader Raila Odinga who was returning from the US. Some have argued that the bedlam could have been avoided had the police allowed the welcome party.

In their view, the subsequent action by the police to ban NASA’s political rallies in Kamkunji and Uhuru Park exacerbated an already tense situation inevitably leading to the conflict. There is no denying that the police were overreaching themselves when they banned these rallies even though the law expressly allows for such congregations. The police were gullibly playing into NASA’s hands when it was quite obvious that the coalition would disingenuously leverage this repressive response to build a case of State oppression. The Jubilee government must rein in an over enthusiastic and an out of touch police service that is displaying hallmarks of the brutal force of yesteryear. Yesterday’s savage actions were taking place even before the ink has dried on a report on investigations into unjustifiable killings after the presidential elections.

High-handed actions by the police must be rebuked otherwise the civil disobedience campaign launched by the Opposition could take a more sinister direction. However, NASA must also join other actors and help to deescalate the post-election tensions. There have been proposals that the Opposition and Jubilee should hold talks and bring the country on an even keel. These proposals should be taken seriously before extremists on both parties sabotage prospects for such talks.