Who cries for uniformed officers who risk their lives for a safer Kenya?

Police guard the Pangani Police Station in Nairobi on June 15, 2016. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Instead of appreciating the positive contribution of our uniformed officers, celebrating the heroes and patriots among them or genuinely and deeply commiserating with their families and friends when these officers make the ultimate sacrifice for our safety and security, the focus of some Kenyans is perpetually fixated on fault-finding.

  • On the other hand, when the unfortunate shoe of fate is on the other foot, this class of Kenyans is swift on its feet to take to the streets protesting ‘extra judicial killings’, police brutality, you name the vice; and according to this chattering class, the police have committed it or are in the process of committing it!

On the morning of Thursday, July 14, Kenyans awoke to the chilling news of police officers having been murdered in cold blood by one of their own at Kapenguria Police Station, which, ironically is within shouting distance of the prison cell where Kenya’s founding president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was incarcerated for several years during the struggle for independence.

A few weeks earlier, on June 21, five police officers had lost their lives in Elwak in northeastern Kenya, when al-Shabaab ambushed a police escort vehicle. The public service bus the policemen were providing security escort to managed to get away.

All the 60 or so passengers in the bus reached their destinations shaken but safe and sound. Not so for the five ill-fated policemen. Their bodies were mutilated with multiple gunshots after which the terrorists burnt them beyond recognition.

Flashback to the wee hours of January 15 in el-Ade in Somalia. On this calamitous Black Friday, al-Shabaab launched a surprise attack on Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) barracks. Dozens of innocent Kenyan soldiers spilt their blood defending their barracks and their country’s national security.

These incidents are just a few of the most germane illustrations of the mortal danger our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, other relatives and friends in national security sector face every day they don their uniform and walk out of the door to work.

President Uhuru Kenyatta most aptly captured what our uniformed officers go through every when, in his condolence to the families of the officers killed in Kapenguria, he said: “I celebrate the lives of the young patriots who died defending the law and order we so often take for granted. In days to come, my government will give their families every support as they come to terms with these tragic events. My family and I pray that God will grant them the grace to bear these losses”.

Indeed, police and military professionals live a life of great personal sacrifice and perpetual risk so that you, me and all other non-uniformed Kenyans can sleep soundly at night, go about our businesses in the streets and suburbs of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kapenguria, Kisumu or Garissa in safety and comfort.

THEIR SACRIFICE

But alas, as a country, and especially our vocal intelligentsia in groups commonly known in donor and development partner circles as the non-state actors, we seem to have lost the sense of proportion when it comes judging just how much our uniformed officers sacrifice day in, day out to ensure that our comfort zones remain comfortable.

Instead of appreciating the positive contribution of our uniformed officers, celebrating the heroes and patriots among them or genuinely and deeply commiserating with their families and friends when these officers make the ultimate sacrifice for our safety and security, the focus of some Kenyans is perpetually fixated on fault-finding.

On the other hand, when the unfortunate shoe of fate is on the other foot, this class of Kenyans is swift on its feet to take to the streets protesting ‘extra judicial killings’, police brutality, you name the vice; and according to this chattering class, the police have committed it or are in the process of committing it!

The Sh100 million questions that beg answers are these: aren’t our uniformed officers begotten of mothers and fathers who suffer the pain of losing their loved ones? Doesn’t the blood that flows in the veins of police officers and soldiers fallen in the line of duty look red enough? Don’t the lives innocent lost in the line of duty too deserve compassion and affirmative mention in annual chronicles compiled by human rights bodies?

Even the Holy Book cautions against double standards and warns those who engage in the vice of dire consequences.

Mathew 23:14 (King James Bible) says: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation”.

 

Mwenda Njoka is the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government.