My beef with new laws to combat insecurity

What you need to know:

  • Two, I have argued on many occasions that what Kenya needs urgently, as it reorganises its security apparatuses, is an intelligence-led strategy for protecting Kenyans, their property and their livelihoods. That is to say I remain persuaded that the intelligence community has failed Kenyans miserably in dealing with the Al-Shabaab militia and crime.
  • Three, I have been emphatic that the prime duty of the government is the protection of its citizens, their property and their livelihoods at any time and all the time and in this respect it has failed spectacularly and the buck must stop with the President.
  • Four, I have called for a change of strategy in fighting Al-Shabaab and its sleeper cells resident in Kenya. I am still persuaded that Kenya’s security apparatuses should have prevented the twin attacks in Mandera that killed more than 60 Kenyans if the strategy was right.

In my last post, I was clear that in dealing with terrorism, the President’s hand needs to be strengthened by law and not to be fettered by it.

I argued for the reorganisation of the National Police Service to give it an unambiguous, streamlined, action-oriented chain of command to drive rapid response and deployment. Where was I coming from?

One, I am alive to the fact that when President Uhuru Kenyatta put all the uniformed services, of course apart from the Armed Forces, under the Inspector-General of Police, a corresponding harmonised hierarchy was not put in place to ensure orders cascaded down the chain of command seamlessly. The service is bogged down in bureaucracy.

Two, I have argued on many occasions that what Kenya needs urgently, as it reorganises its security apparatuses, is an intelligence-led strategy for protecting Kenyans, their property and their livelihoods. That is to say I remain persuaded that the intelligence community has failed Kenyans miserably in dealing with the Al-Shabaab militia and crime.

Three, I have been emphatic that the prime duty of the government is the protection of its citizens, their property and their livelihoods at any time and all the time and in this respect it has failed spectacularly and the buck must stop with the President.

CHANGE STRATEGY

Four, I have called for a change of strategy in fighting Al-Shabaab and its sleeper cells resident in Kenya. I am still persuaded that Kenya’s security apparatuses should have prevented the twin attacks in Mandera that killed more than 60 Kenyans if the strategy was right.

Therefore, as I stated here last Sunday and on NTV’s AM Live the following morning, some new laws were necessary in the fight against terror. In other words, I have been calling for a legal framework within which to fight insecurity, terrorism included, which has run rampant in the country.

So what is the new legislation intended to do? It will, says government, enable the National Intelligence Service (NIS) act on information regarding terror in real time, ensure terror suspects don’t get bail and convicts get stiff penalties and ensure that there is one command for the uniformed services. Yes, that points to the framework that I have been agitating for.

Yes, that should tell me that the government identified the problem to be legal and especially a liberal constitution. That tells me that the government did not think that those in charge of the security apparatuses were incompetent, but that the President, police and NIS needed more power to be better able to protect Kenyans.

So, I am supposed to be happy that there is new legislation in the land to combat insecurity, but I am afraid I am not. One, going forward I believe that matters of Kenya’s security should be deliberated upon by both Houses of Parliament because insecurity affects every part of the country and everybody in it.

BETTER HOUSE

Indeed, the Senate is a better House for debating security and other matters of national concern because it is largely bipartisan and concerned more about the concerns of ordinary people.

The National Assembly gives expression to the age-old fight for power between the dominant political elite. Two, is that the way a House of Parliament should pass legislation? Did the MPs know the contents of what they were passing?

Did House Speaker Justin Muturi know the amendments he was feverishly reading out and frenziedly rushing through? Truth is the government shamelessly bulldozed the Security Amendment Bill through the House amid the most chaotic scenes ever witnessed in the assembly over a Bill.

Mr Muturi needed protection in his own House. Mr Samuel Chepkonga and Mr Asman Kamama, who moved most of the amendments, too, needed protection from opposition MPs.

Three, the manner in which this Bill was rammed through the House buttressed the fears I expressed here last week. Contrary to what angry and arrogant Deputy President William Ruto says, the new legislation infringes the Bill of Rights.

Four, the new legislation is therefore an assault by conservative forces – who opposed the constitution under the leadership of Mr Ruto – backed by reactionary clergy led by Anglican and Catholic primates Eliud Wabukala and John Cardinal Njue, on a progressive document whose twin stars are the Bill of Rights and devolution.

I see opposition parties and civil society head to court to challenge the new laws and pray for the protection of the constitution. Ominously, the Executive and National Assembly do not like the Judiciary.