Tackle political goons with seriousness

Some of the goons believed to have been hired to prevent demonstrations on Moi Avenue ,during protests over the killing of blogger Albert Ojwang by police at Central police station.[Collins Kweyu,Standard]

The rising goon culture has reached a point where it can no longer be ignored. Hired gangs of jobless youth terrorise citizens in rival political rallies across the country yet rather than act, the State appears to have become a disinterested spectator.

The tragedy is that the menace is being financed and tolerated by politicians who believe brawn ultimately triumphs over brains, a dangerous belief that could push the country over the cliff unless care is taken.

Events of the past fortnight alone are worrying. In Kisii, goons armed with stones and clubs ambushed the ‘Linda Mwananchi’ convoy at Keumbu as leaders, including former Chief Justice David Maraga, Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna and Siaya Governor James Orengo made their way to a rally in Keroka. Vehicles were smashed, supporters scattered, and a man, Vincent Osiemo, later died from injuries sustained in the melee.

 Witnesses say police stood by as the attack unfolded, some even claiming that officers joined in hurling stones. In Nairobi's Westlands, armed men on motorcycles stormed a restaurant along General Mathenge Road, robbing patrons of phones and cash before firing shots into the air and disappearing.

Weeks earlier, hired thugs twice invaded All Saints Cathedral during a public forum on the national budget, roughing up participants and stealing their belongings. That incident echoed an earlier raid on Witima ACK Church in Nyeri where worshippers were forced to flee tear gas and gunfire. Add to this the now familiar pattern of roads getting sealed off by rival gangs, motorists waylaid and robbed, and matatu commuters relieved of their fares at gunpoint, and a picture emerges of a country sliding toward lawlessness.

Where is the government in all this? Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has instead chosen to spend his energy sparring with politicians on the Opposition side, warning them that their time to campaign freely is running out before 2027. That posture does nothing to answer the Anglican Archbishop's simple question after the cathedral attack: Who owns the goons, and why do they walk free?

 Murkomen appears to have lost the plot on matters of national security, wading into the deep end of a pool whose currents he does not seem to understand. A handful of low-level arrests here and there cannot substitute for dismantling the networks that recruit, arm and pay these young men. Politicians finance goons because violence delivers short-term political advantage. But a country that lets armed gangs decide who speaks, who worships and who travels safely is writing its own epitaph. Haiti did not become a gang-run state overnight.

It got there gradually by tolerating one militia after another and by not arresting the perpetrators until the gangs outgrew the politicians who assembled them. Kenya still has the chance to get back on track. The government must stop merely talking tough and start prosecuting financiers, exposing the networks and protecting citizens before the monster it is feeding turns on its keepers.