The writing was on the wall for Kimaiyo, Lenku

That the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo resigned from office yesterday did not come as a surprise. The pressure was building and something was bound to give, sooner rather than later.

And in those dramatic moments yesterday, Joseph ole Lenku, the much maligned Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government was also fired.

Although the two enjoyed security of tenure, they had been on the line of fire for some time.

The runaway insecurity in the country and the sensitive dockets Kimaiyo and Lenku held put paid to their careers — finally.

As it were, the Mandera massacres — almost back to back — where a total of 64 people lost their lives was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

There had been numerous other attacks and insecurity issues, including the Westgate attacks, the Kwale massacres, which the public felt the duo and the entire government did not handle properly.

But when 28 people were ejected from a Nairobi-bound bus from Mandera and murdered in cold-blood by suspected Al-Shabaab terrorists on November 22, Kenyan’s were outraged. Barely 10 days later, and another 36 people are butchered in Gestapo style, a few kilometres from Mandera.

After yesterday’s crisis meeting at State House where President Uhuru Kenyatta summoned his security team, a few heads had to roll.

But who are these two men and how did they find their way to these prestigious yet sensitive government positions.

Kimaiyo is the first Inspector General of Police, a position created by the 2010 Kenyan Constitution to replace the position of Police Commissioner and whose appointment required parliamentary approval.

Kimaiyo, who holds Masters Degree in Criminology, earlier served as the Commander of the Presidential Escort before taking the position of General Service Unit Commandant between 2002 and 2003.

His appointment as the IG in 2012 was widely seen as a positive move that would bring sanity and professionalism in the police force given his earlier credentials.

However, the same law that created his office was also the statute that created the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) headed by Johnstone Kavulundi.

For a few years, Kimaiyo and Kavulundi had been at loggerheads over who presided over what functions of the police.

all-too powerful

While Kavulundi constantly cited the Constitution which gave his commission the mandate to perform certain functions like appointment and vetting of police officers, Kimaiyo was adamant and ran his office like the former all-too powerful Police Commissioner.

Matters came to a head in mid 2013 when Kimaiyo unilaterally appointed 130 new officers to the Officer Commanding Police Division without involving the NPSC.

The differences between Kimaiyo and Kavulundi were blamed for the lax security in the country.

The tussle between the two became ugly in late 2013 when a human head and a pair of hands were abandoned at the offices of the NPSC in September 2013, prompting the commission to move to Skypark Building in Westlands.

Much has been said about Ole Lenku in the security circles (or put another way much flak has been thrown his way) but who really knows who Lenku really is and how he got the Cabinet?

Apart from the fact that he has been in the corporate sector management as a hotelier and that he vied for the Kajiado South parliamentary seat in 2003 in a National Rainbow Coalition, much is not known about his political career and how he became a CS and particularly how he was selected to head the power security docket.