Are police the cause of insecurity in Likoni, Mombasa?

Recently there was news report of a two-day robbery spree in Likoni Mombasa, where a woman was short dead and a child and other adults injured. Residents expressed shock because there is a police station nearby. Although the police said they knew where the gang came from, but security for the residents is a must, what are they doing about it?

Why don’t they follow the robbers to their hiding places and flush them out? Lately police officers have been on the receiving end. An administration police have been charged in court with alleged charges of murder of three people in Nairobi.

In Mombasa an administrative police officer and civilians have been charged with abduction and also found with narcotics. This is a setback in Kenyans, because these are the people who are trusted and they are supposed to protect Kenyans and also enforce the rule of law, but they turn against those they are supposed to protect.

 In Likoni, the residents cannot move earlier than 5.00 a.m. and later than 7.00 pm. There are young men who are called “mateja” and they are always on drugs. They waylay residents in the open and rob them, or they ask for their (posho), any amount of money a resident has, they take away. This has curtailed the movement of the residents. Furthermore, they have mastered the names of the residents one by one and they sit strategically in places they will not miss seeing them going or coming from work or their own business.

When you don’t have money they follow you to your home and wait outside for their daily “hut tax”. Although the snake does not fly, it has caught the bird whose home is in the sky. Every closed eye is not sleeping and every open eye is not seeing. Let security in Likoni, be enhanced to protect the residents who are living in fear.