Kicking out Nkaissery and Boinnet won't end impunity in police force

I never thought there could come a time when I would defend the police, and I know I am going against the grain to even attempt to do so at a time when emotions are so high against them after the heinous torture and execution of youthful human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client and their driver. These are truly tense times and those calling for comprehensive and meaningful reforms in the police service should be regarded as patriots motivated purely by the good of Kenya.

However, there is one incessant call which does not make much sense. Too many people, especially lawyers and members of civil society are insisting that the minister in charge of the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government, Joseph ole Nkaissery, and Inspector-General (IG) of Police Joseph Boinnet should resign to take responsibility for the existence of a killer squad in the police service. That is balderdash.

Mr Nkaissery, who is in charge of internal security, has bluntly said he will do no such thing for he cannot follow every policeman who goes rogue, a reaction which makes plenty of sense. However, Mr Boinnet has been a little more circumlocutory while denying the existence of a “death squad” in the police service. No such outfit can be officially set up and acknowledged. However, to say that extra-judicial executions have not become a fact of life in this country, that many “suspects” have not disappeared and others gunned down in broad daylight, is disingenuous, to say the least.

However, the question to ask is this: Are these two folks really responsible for the activities of police officers who take it upon themselves to eliminate fellow Kenyans by determining their guilt and carrying out the sentence? If the two must resign to take responsibility for the nefarious activities of a few, then where does it all stop? Shouldn’t we then agitate for the resignation of the President and his deputy since they are ultimately responsible for the state of (in)security? Can we truly say that if a lawyer loses a succession of court cases, for whatever reason, he or she should stop practising on that account?

PROPER PERSPECTIVE

Let us look at this issue in its proper perspective. Mr Nkaissery was appointed to the ministry in December 2014 after his predecessor, Joseph ole Lenku, was deemed to be incompetent over his handling of a spate of terrorist attacks. Mr Nkaissery, who was poached from ODM, was given the job of restoring security to a punch-drunk country reeling from these attacks, and he has had only one year and eight months to do it. As for Mr Boinnet, he has had even less time, for he has been on the job for only a year and five months.

This, of course, is not to defend the two gentlemen. Surely, they must know that extra-judicial executions have been going on for a long time. How else can one explain the brutal suppression of the Mungiki sect during which hundreds, if not thousands, of youths perished (which many Kenyans celebrated), or the still unexplained executions of radical Muslim clerics and the disappearances of their youthful acolytes at the coast and other areas of the country bordering Somalia?

My beef with those people calling for the resignation of our security chiefs is that it appears a little too selective. How are the resignations of Mr Nkaissery and Mr Boinnet going to end the impunity that some of our security and Intelligence units seem to enjoy? We have developed a habit of preferring simplistic solutions to complex issues instead of exercising our brains to ask important questions, like what actually stalled reforms in the police service.

It would be a lot more profitable to ask why the vetting of police officers has unearthed so many worms. We must ask why corruption has become a growth industry in the police service despite all the efforts made to stem it. Could it be that the efforts have been half-hearted? Could it be that there are forces to whom corruption is like food without which they cannot survive, and they happen to be more powerful than the CS or the IG?

To save this country, reforms in the police service should not be mere items in political party manifestos; they should be carried out with the meticulousness they deserve. But even before that, it would be more profitable to set up a commission of inquiry over torture and extra-judicial executions in the past. Only dysfunctional governments rely on torturers and murderers to function.

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