Multi-agency cooperation will come in handy in war on graft

What you need to know:

  • Ask the DPP and the DCI. You will do your work and bring corrupt characters before those judges who they will never convict.

  • Instead they will take you round in circles and tell you the evidence presented in your cases is “shoddy.”

  • More often than not, your targets will successfully petition those courts to block your investigations.

Congratulations are in order, Bwana Twalib Abdallah Mbarak, on your assumption of office as the new CEO of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. Let me start by pointing out an image on the front-page of the Daily Nation the day after you were sworn in. There is a photograph of you with DPP Noordin Haji and DCI George Kinoti, in a threesome shoulder embrace while facing forward where the cameraman is positioned. You must have seen the photo, but you perhaps didn’t appreciate its full symbolism.

INTELLIGENCE

The focus on you three by the newspaper was deliberate. Of course there are other photos of your actual swearing-in ceremony being conducted by judicial mandarins inside the Supreme Court building. I am sure you will agree that being photographed with those mandarins doesn’t carry the same compelling message as with the photo the newspaper chose to use.

Sir, let me explain what that photo was meant to convey, if you didn’t sense it right away. You and the DPP and the DCI are the country’s only hope in the war against corruption. The much I have heard of your background in law enforcement, in Military Intelligence, in the National Intelligence Service and in security-related roles in the private sector is inspiring. Your credentials fit the job. You even have had a previous stint with the same EACC. Also, I can’t fail to mention that you have been a regular guest columnist on security matters on the Daily Nation.

That’s the good news. Now comes the bad. Don’t celebrate your new appointment – yet. You will soon be an angry man. Don’t look further for the source of your impending misery than the courts where you went for your swearing-in ceremony. The apparent mission in life of the officers who preside over those courts is to run rings around you, to frustrate your work. Ask the DPP and the DCI. You will do your work and bring corrupt characters before those judges who they will never convict. Instead they will take you round in circles and tell you the evidence presented in your cases is “shoddy.” More often than not, your targets will successfully petition those courts to block your investigations. You will find out that rather than being partners in the fight to eliminate corruption, these judges are quite happy in sustaining the corrupt status quo. Sad to relay, sir, you will be set up by these courts to fail in your job.

OBSTACLE

I am sorry, sir, for painting such a bleak picture at a time when what you most need is a public morale booster. If your endeavours are to succeed, sit down with your anti-graft enforcement colleagues and agree as a team on how to deal with this huge obstacle called the Judiciary. The problem lies there.

One final thing. The anti-corruption war has evolved. Until fairly recently, the EACC saw itself as being in competition for PR kudos with the DCI and other investigators. No longer. The game in town these days is about multi-agency co-operation – between the EACC, the DCI, the DPP, the Attorney-General’s office, and with other agencies involved in the anti-corruption war. It’s very similar to the multi-agency approach our security forces have adopted in fighting terrorism, and which was so successfully put on display against the terrorists who attacked the Dusit Complex.

* * *

The Swahili urban slang word “wametuzoea” roughly translates to: “They are taking us too much for granted.” Al-Shabaab operatives have carelessly breached those limits. We must no longer tolerate it. Time has come to change our counter-terror temper. We must get ruthless, very ruthless, both with the terrorists and their enablers. An eye-for-an-eye, the Israeli way. If our security organs must set up assassination squads to target the culprits before they make a move, so be it. President Uhuru Kenyatta spoke on Wednesday about “sympathisers” who help fund, plan and execute these local terrorist attacks. Let’s deal with them, wherever they are, without care for so-called political correctness. Ethiopia used to do that. Along the way Kenya must restate, in loud and clear terms, and to all and sundry, that we will withdraw KDF from Somalia in our own time and pace.

That said, the Dusit operation confirmed Kenyan security forces have gained a lot of expertise in dealing with terror situations. The response this time was fast and well-coordinated, unlike the haphazard reactions during the Westgate and Garissa university attacks. Congratulations to our security forces.

Al-Shabaab targets places like Dusit and Westage for a reason. They contain many people in a confined space who are easy to kill one by one. They are also upmarket, with an upscale clientele, which forms the perfect setting for the terrorists to reap maximum publicity. The attackers didn’t care for an escape route. They expected to die anyway. And be rewarded with a bevy of virgins or whatever in Paradise.