Will ‘Nyumba Kumi’ check crime?

By MICHAEL MUGWANG’A

On Thursday night, arsonists invaded the rural home of Nyakach MP Aduma Owuor and set a house on fire and killed his parents.

A few days earlier, thugs attacked a village in Samburu, stole animals and left at least two people dead in a crime that has for long been accepted and baptised “cattle rustling”.

Three days before that, a university student was fatally wounded by a police officer as he joined fellow villagers in an effort to recover stolen animals from a local police station.

From arson attacks to cattle rustling to death by police fire, security agents are burning the midnight oil in the search for a lasting solution to an increasing wave of crime

The Interior Ministry has come up with the ‘Nyumba Kumi’ initiative, a community based information sharing mechanism the ministry hopes will counter insecurity.

 

   Pilot project

A committee has since been constituted to spearhead the initiative. The members of the committee include former provincial commissioner Joseph Kaguthi, former executive director of Small Arms Secretariat Francis Sang, Kenya Airways CEO Titus Naikuni and private security consultant Werunga Simiyu.

“The government has already issued instructions to county police bosses to work out modalities and ensure the initiative is up and running by end of the month. We have in fact rolled out a pilot project in some parts of Nairobi,” said Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku.

Speaking to Crime Watch, Mwenda Njoka, the communications director and advisor to the Cabinet Secretary said the ministry hopes to let communities own the initiative and drive it to achieve optimal security for themselves and the entire country.

The initiative is hedged on the idea of community policing rolled out by former President Mwai Kibaki in 2005.

But  the Police Service and security experts seem not so enthusiastic about the initiative.

Contacted for comment, police spokesperson Zipporah Mboroki told Crime Watch: “Have you seen us initiate anything. Just wait until we have and we will talk to you.”

Inspector General David Kimaiyo last Friday promised to get back to Crime Watch but had not by the time of going to press.

Professional competence

According to Dr Mutuma Ruteere, an expert on security issues,police officers may find the requirements of community policing an attack on their presumed competence.

Writing in one specialist publication, Dr Ruteere argues: “Police officers who are trained to simply use the threat of force and prosecution now find themselves having to justify their professional judgement.

Understandably, the police find that the demands of community policing approaches are an attack to their professional competence and pride.”

Mr Richard Tuta, an Israel trained security expert, argues  that the concept is noble but mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure intelligence given by the community is acted on effectively.

“The Nyumba Kumi initiative can work well if we can reflect on the shortcomings that made community policing fail and build on them.The structure should be that the community and formal security agencies compliment rather than compete with each other,” said Tuta.

One problem the new initiative is bound to face is lack of trust between those giving information and those receiving it, how and if it will be acted upon.

“If by any chance members of the community realise that the information they give will be disclosed to the culprit, then the programme will not last long,” said Tuta.

And this fear is indeed founded if the events of last week are anything to go by.  Mr Owuor, the Nyakach MP, has been in the forefront leading his constituents to protest the runaway insecurity in the area.

At some point, the MP carried the body of one of the victims of crime and the spear used to kill him and dumped it at the doorsteps of the office the county’s police commander.

 Common interests

The fact that the criminals have had the audacity to attack the legislator’s home and kill his parents is likely to send chills down the spines of many who might have wished to participate in community policing in general and Nyumba Kumi in particular.

It is also instructive that in the same week, Philip Ochieng Onguje, a man associated with the push for police reforms and better security was killed in a fire that gutted his house.

The cause of the 11pm fire is yet to be established. Onguje was the founder and coordinator of Usalama Reforms Forum, a human rights organisation that was actively campaigning against the introduction of proposed amendments to the National Police Service Act that aims at granting the Inspector General sweeping powers.

But according to communication from the Interior ministry, Nyumba Kumi does not necessarily mean “Ten Households” but rather stands for a manageable cluster of households bound by common security interests. 

“This may be a court in a residential estate such as Buru Buru, a gated-community cluster in Karen, a residential apartment block or blocks etc. It is structured around the concept of the smallest and easily manageable social unit households,” said the Cabinet Secretary ‘s advisor.

 

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