Raila hits out at Uhuru over widespread insecurity, says situation is worsening

Opposition leader Raila Odinga yesterday lashed out at the Jubilee Government over the worsening security situation in the country. He said the administration had failed the country, because, in it’s 50-year-history, insecurity has never been this worse.

“The Jubilee administration is failing our people and our country in a major way,” said Raila.
In a strongly-worded dispatch to newsrooms, and later in a news conference at the Sentrim Lodge in Elementaita, the chief principal of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) asked President Uhuru Kenyatta to rework the security structure, sack the current bosses, and get competent people.

“We remind Jubilee that it is dragging our resilient nation into the ditch and we shall neither forgive nor forget. We shall never accept this and move on. When can we expect an end to this desperate state of affairs? Where is the bottom? We ask the government to give us answers. For this cannot go on forever,” said the CORD leader.

Raila condemned the attacks, and said it was disheartening that every time there is violence, the Government promises investigations, the military swings in for an operation, and in the end, the country is never told what went wrong. He said many Kenyans were being killed, while incompetent police and security bosses in Nairobi, who ought to keep Kenyans safe, were getting promoted.

He condoled with the victims and families of police officers who get killed in the line of duty.

“After every attack, no single strong action is taken to resurrect people’s confidence. Only warnings flow, then the military are sent to the scene. Each security failure is being used to move Kenya from being a longed-for democracy into a military State,” said Raila in his brief.

In Elementaita, Nakuru County where his party’s National Executive Committee has been meeting for the past two days, the Opposition chief said President Kenyatta must reshuffle the country’s police chiefs and address the root cause of rising insecurity.

He described the attack on the passengers near the Kenya-Somali border last Saturday morning as barbaric, archaic and unacceptable, and an affront to the respect for human rights.

“It cannot be over-emphasised that the primary responsibility of any legitimate Government is the safety and security of its citizens. I call upon the security agencies to take the recent rise of insecurity of the country seriously,” said Raila.

It is not lost on Kenyans that the Mandera attack in which at least 28 people were slaughtered in cold blood was carried out by the Somalia-based Al Shabaab militia, which crossed the border, came into the country committed the crime and rushed back to their conflict-ridden haven in Somalia.

“Our armed forces ought to be more concerned in securing our porous border from such devastating attacks and leave the work of internal security to the homeland security,” said Raila.

The CORD principal rubbished the extended curfew imposed on the residents of Lamu – now in its fifth month - by the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiywo and the raid on mosques in Mombasa. He said were he the president he would have preferred to deal with the root cause of insecurity rather than resorting to harassing and intimidating residents.

“The curfew in Lamu is not serving any meaningful purpose and is being applied selectively. The people of Lamu have suffered tremendous losses. We are in the festive season when Kenyans troop to the coast for relations. It is unfair for the Government to keep the curfew in force,” said Raila.

He said the Government knows the people involved in criminal activities at the coast and they should be arrested to face the law. Raila was accompanied by Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho, Turkana’s Joseph Nanok, Kakamaga’s Wycliffe Oparanya and Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba among other ODM leaders.

The former prime minister said an attack of any Kenyan should be considered as an attack on the nation, adding that a single life lost whether in Mandera, Wajir, Marsabit or any other part of the country, “is one too many.”
“The matter of national security has reached a desperate level. Kenyans fear for their lives generally, Kenyans fear walking on the streets,” he said.

He said the attack in Mandera could have been nipped in the bud if security agencies had been pro-active. Raila said his push for national dialogue was to address the insecurity in country and discuss the full implementation of police reforms, which he said the Jubilee Government has failed to do.