While we look for scapegoats, our security situation is getting worse

There is a certain tension built in the way security provision is conceptualised. Ideally, the provision of security is built into the logic of the founding of the state.

The logic assumes that a sovereign state exists only if it is so recognised if it can guarantee reciprocity. For reciprocity to work, one state must assure the other that it has a monopoly of all forms of legitimate force within its territory.

However, states are controlled largely by politicians, a good many of whom have no notion of ethical behaviour even on basic issues like truth telling. Scapegoating is one thing politicians love, as it enables them to shift blame from their corner.

This week, there was some scapegoating taking place on what otherwise is a serious matter of insecurity in the country. In a statement designed to respond to alleged Al Shabaab attacks along Thika Road, the Deputy President indicatively tucked in the statement a call to the Judiciary asking them to do more ‘to make sure that these people, once arrested and identified as terror suspects, do not find their way into the general population and continue to execute their evil schemes.”

What was curious about this is that the Deputy President was essentially too selective in citing the Judiciary. He did not cite the Police, the Prosecutor, or the Intelligence Service.

He made the calculated assumption that the police obligation of investigating the crime of terrorism is satisfactory, the prosecution case before the judges watertight and the only problem is that the Judiciary is not ensuring that the ‘suspects’ are kept without possibility of bail.

I am not a lawyer, but for some time in 2012-13, I had the chance to watch judicial processes at Thika Magistrates Court closely. I had been unfairly arrested by Ruiru Council askaris when I protested their harassing of innocent traders at Kahawa Wendani.

FAVOURING SHODDY EVIDENCE

The askaris had carefully timed their attack at a late afternoon hour on a Friday. When I protested, they arrested me, bundled me into their van and threw me in the police cells at Ruiru charging me with obstruction and incitement.

To their displeasure, I pleaded innocent in court and sought to demonstrate my innocence.

At the courts, I went armed with evidence. The Ruiru Council prosecutor disappeared until the magistrate threw away the case. Judges are called on to examine the evidence before the court and decide mainly on that basis.

Do Al Shabaab suspects deserve the same threshold? There might be reason to waiver from this threshold. But that reason must be contextualised at all times.

It cannot be justified if the state fails to investigate and present credible evidence before the court. What has often happened is the expectation that Judges should be nationalistic enough to bend the threshold in favour of faulty or shoddy evidence.

The Judiciary is alive to its role in fighting terrorism, but not in the manner that the Deputy President thinks of it. In a letter dated April 28, 2014 and written by the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, the Judiciary sought to be relevant to the national security concerns.

Their aim was to seek a greater understanding of the broader social context within which the security provision operates so that judicial officers can understand the imperatives and challenges of national security.

Rather than follow this path in which a structured engagement with the Judiciary is developed in service of national security concerns, the Deputy President preferred to deal with issues at a press conference.

For the umpteenth time, we need a deliberate and structured approach to security built on serious intelligence gathering and collaboration between different segments of the security sector. Scapegoating will not do.

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