Mr President, stop playing politics with our security and stop Shabaab

What you need to know:

  • The message should be self-evident to the President. Stop playing politics with our security. Put the right people in the right places.
  • This has neatly fed into the criminal laissez-faire attitude our government has to security — inadequate and unsophisticated training of police, below-welfare pay, ill-equipped, and demotivated.
  • In a word, we train our security agents to embrace corruption and then expect them to take a bullet for us.
  • End this unwholesome drama with Western countries and relate to them on the basis of national interest — we need them, they need us. Cooperate on security.

The government deserves all the anger and damnation that has been directed at it because of its bumbling response to the Garissa terrorist attack.

However, let us put this travesty in perspective: while highly dangerous and deadly, the Al-Shabaab threat is neither as complicated nor sophisticated as it is being held out to be.

In every one attack that has succeeded, dozens have been thwarted. Critically, even the successful ones could have been neutralised had available intelligence been acted upon.

This is a terror gang that the Kenya Defence Forces have crushed and harassed in Somalia and that now desperately seeks affirmation and recognition from the likes of Boko Haram and IS. Kenya is a soft target because attacks here can be framed as revenge against infidels and non-clean Christian aggressors.

That narrative is easy to sell because of our government’s sloppiness in handling the attacks and the fallout. Actionable intelligence available was either not shared because of diplomatic faux pas, in this instance between Kenya and the UK. Once the attack was reported, response from our agencies was extraordinarily inept.

The Recce Unit, trained for these situations, was stranded in Nairobi because a chopper they could have used was on some feel-good mission to Mombasa.

Even with all the power at its disposal, our security establishment could not commandeer aircraft to take its elite team to Garissa. Clearly, we learnt nothing from Westgate. After the attack, we are now targeting many Somali businesses as terrorist supporters.

Contrast this response to the highly professional, speedy, and effective reaction to the JKIA fire on August 17, 2013. The devastated airport was up and running within three days. It is not lack of intelligence or capacity that hobbles us.

Away from the immediate horror of the attack is the historical litter of developmental negligence of northeastern Kenya, the targeting of the Somali in security operations that stigmatises them and provides a convenient, albeit twisted moral-religious excuse for these Al-Shabaab terrorists.

CRIMINAL LAISSEZ-FAIRE

This has neatly fed into the criminal laissez-faire attitude our government has to security — inadequate and unsophisticated training of police, below-welfare pay, ill-equipped, and demotivated. In a word, we train our security agents to embrace corruption and then expect them to take a bullet for us.

We are a nation at war behaving as if we are the Vatican. It is worse than dumb. Responses to terrorist attacks must be swift, expensive, non-compromising, and hugely inconvenient to everyone. But they are necessary.

The United States responded by creating a whole anti-terrorism Department of Homeland Security. Uganda has a highly visible, menacing anti-terrorism squad that is seen and felt everywhere, especially in cities and around obvious possible targets. Those who know Rwanda are aware that you cannot even sneeze without security there knowing why.

Underlying this toughness must be a clear and firmly implemented development plan — these countries are not havens of radicalisation. They have not provided convenient excuses for young men and women to find hope, solace, and affirmation in ideologies steeped in terror and hate.

The recent media report, Terror Crossing, that captured the porosity of the border at Mandera and the farcical security arrangements to protect Kenya against its Al-Shabaab nemesis should not have surprised anyone. It is an oft-repeated but never-acted-upon fact. The dozen or so hungry police officers at the border post literally hide at night because they are exposed.

The message should be self-evident to the President. Stop playing politics with our security. Put the right people in the right places. That was not necessarily evident in the appointments of our police boss, minister for security, and spy chief, although that is not to question their competence.

End this unwholesome drama with Western countries and relate to them on the basis of national interest — we need them, they need us. Cooperate on security.

Above all, find employment for our youth. Review implementation of your Jubilee manifesto on employment and security. Your plans are not working.

Support the private sector and work with the county governments. They will employ a lot of people. Rethink education management. Any specific plans you had to transform Kenya are no longer obvious.

Smell the coffee. You have the freedom of not being poor and should not be captive to short-sighted politics. It will be highly dangerous to ask for a second term before you sort out security.

Mr Mshindi is the acting Editorial Director, Nation Media Group. [email protected]