Is corruption to blame for terror raids?

Kenya Red Cross Society staff on January 16, 2019 console a victim of the Dusit terror attack at Chiromo mortuary, where bodies of those killed were taken. PHOTO | FRANCIS NDERITU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • A fight between two people who fear death is manageable. Not so for an engagement in which one person believes he or she will earn a reward by dying.
  • We as a national community must go back to the drawing board and ask if we have learnt any lessons from recent experiences.

More than 35 years ago when I studied Comparative Religion, I came across a statement in the Koran that was clear about the position of Islam on terrorism.

It went something like: "There is no place in Islam for terrorism. Whoever kills an innocent human being is deemed to have killed humanity."

In the early years of Christianity, crusaders went around the world killing thousands of people in the name of their beliefs.

There is indeed a way in which some believers can become so fanatic that they are even prepared to die and kill for their faith.

A fight between two people who fear death is manageable.

Not so for an engagement in which one person believes he or she will earn a reward by dying.

POLICE

This is the reason we must thank God for our police and other disciplined officers who turned up on Riverside Drive — an area close to the University of Nairobi's student hostels in Chiromo.

The university had to move some students to the main campus.

Security officers came out with great courage and dealt with the unfolding mess that Tuesday.

One Saturday some five years ago, I was coming back home from a conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

While at the airport, I heard people talking about some events in Nairobi. When I appeared interested in what they were saying, they kept quiet.

WESTGATE

My short flight to Nairobi was confusing. That was the day the attack on Westgate mall took place.

Many innocent Kenyans died and the country’s security forces appeared confused. Apparently, the coordination of the rescue mission was not right.

Quite obviously — unlike this time — the heads of the military, police and other security organs were out to please their bosses than to do what was right.

Human beings are worse than animals. An animal never plans to kill another animal or a human. It only kills in self-defence or in search of food.

Humans, on the other hand, are capable of taking their time and plan what to do in order to kill or scare members of their own kind.

That being the case, we as a national community must go back to the drawing board and ask if we have learnt any lessons from recent experiences.

Is it possible that our corrupt practices have something to do with some of these recent disasters?

After all, the foreigners that may have been involved in this attack must have been allowed into the country by someone.

The writer is the Dean of Students and a Lecturer of Sociology at the University of Nairobi.