Murkomen isn't nosing around for goons who are on the run, they'll eventually get back home

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen.[Elvis Ogina,Standard

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen is a funny man. No, I’m not talking about his dainty smile that he flashed, no doubt tickled by his own jokes when he appeared before a parliamentary committee this week.

It’s good when politicians smile; many are so bad-tempered these days, as Election Day draws close. Murkomen was freshly shaven and his moustache styled. There was a hint of oil on his pate. In a word, here was a man ready to face the world.

But there was no such precision in his responses about the runaway culture of political thuggery in the country. He compounded and conflated just about everything so one had no way of tracking the original question that elicited his convoluted answers.

He was evasive and abrasive as ever when tasked to explain why goons who accosted and assaulted Vihiga Senator Godfrey Osotsi in broad daylight in Kisumu, weeks ago, are still roaming free. “Eeeeee 13 or 14 ran out of the country to the neighbouring country. So, but eeeh, the IG and the DCI are on them….” As a lawyer, he must know such imprecision could jeopardise his argument. And what does he mean when he says that the IG and the DCI are on them?”

We certainly know neither the Inspector General of Police, Douglas Kanja, nor the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Mohamed Amin, is giving a case.

When an MP pressed further why those rascals are still free, Murkomen persisted: “The DCI are on them eeeeeh working with the authorities in the neighbouring country and eeeeeh we will arrest all of them eventually as soon as they step in this country.”

This suggests that the police were merely walking side by side with the crooks in the unnamed neighbouring country, waiting to arrest them upon their return to the country, so the hullabaloo about the authorities being on the goons’ trail was much ado about nothing.

I felt mostly cheated, however, because I didn’t get a glimpse of Murkomen’s famous set piece; he kept his left hand mostly out of view, while wildly waving his right hand, decisively aiming, for some strange reason, for his eyes and nose.