Stop murderous criminals getting away quite easily

Driving on the Southern bypass late at night and in the wee hours of the morning is pretty dicey.

They prey on their victims by placing obstacles, mostly concrete slabs with spikes embedded in them to shred tyres of motorists chancing upon them in the low visibility and thereby hamper their movement.Yesterday morning, tens of motorists using the road fell victims. And around the Nyayo National Stadium, criminal gangs casually proceed to rob passengers in select Public Service Vehicles of valuables in broad daylight. Down the road, an audacious gang riding a motorbike has become notorious for robbery at gun point on the stretch between the Southern bypass and the General Motors bus stage.

These incidences help to illustrate the heightened state of insecurity in the city and police inability to tackle the gangs that operate with impunity, right under their noses. It exposes a struggling police service that lags behind and has missed the chance to embrace technology in tackling rampant crime or even minor traffic infractions. With a police-civilian ratio of 1: 1150, physical policing becomes an impossibility. It was perhaps this reality that gave reason for the security deal between the government and mobile phone service provider Safaricom to build a Sh15 billion security system for the National Police Service.

It is tempting to ask whether Kenyans are getting value for their money. A walk down Nairobi's CBD is not the walk in the park citizens were promised. In fact, one is as insecure in the city centre as when out of town. That businessman Jacob Juma is said to have been murdered in an area full of the same cameras yet no one has been apprehended says a lot. Do the police have the capacity to use the technology available to them?

Ironically, and in spite of this obvious laid back attitude, the police find it easy to bring out a whole arsenal of police gear, new and old, against unarmed civilians practicing their constitutional right to picket for what they believe is a just cause