What next after Garissa massacre?

The past few days have been difficult for us all as a nation. Whether you are a parent who lost your daughter or son in the Garissa University attack, a student who lost hundreds of your peers, a government official with many questions to answer, or a patriotic Kenyan who deeply cares for the future of this country.

We have all shed tears since that barbaric attack, most likely planned to coincide with the sacred Good Friday season commemorated by Christians to mark the redeeming death and resurrection of Christ for all humanity.

Indeed the picture of the attackers, armed to the teeth, attacking young girls during a prayer session with automatic assault rifles in the mistaken grounds they are doing so ‘in the name of God’ makes big mockery of what most religions teach.

As we lay to rest our beloved brothers and sisters, we must critically assess that horrendous attack, deal with the bitter truths and plan for a more secure future.

For a start, the fact that the attack and its resultant hostage situation all ended in the day it started is commendable.

This compares favourably with the Westgate Mall attack in 2013, where our souls were tormented for four days.

But that the attack happened at 5.30am and our special forces only entered the campus 12 hours later is dumbfounding and highly disappointing, to say the least.

Second, the sheer scale of Garissa attack is equally mind-boggling. The slaughter of close to 150 innocent souls (some students are still unaccounted for) makes the impact of this attack three times that of Westgate.

Thirdly, the fact the blood-thirsty Al-Shabaab chose to strike an educational facility speaks volumes of the terror group’s desperation and worse, how low it has sunk as it gets cornered and smells defeat.

In the airline industry, security/safety manuals are revised with any significant incident anywhere in the world. Every time a plane has a mishap, the industry asks itself, what happened? Why did it happen? How do we ensure it doesn’t happen again?

How do we ensure if it were to happen again, fatalities are minimised?

This is the only way the airline industry has posted far much more impressive safety figures than road transport, which was initially deemed safer.

We must ask these questions and answer them honestly if we are to improve our security. We must also ask them now, for tomorrow might be too late.

We must also confront emerging terror trends in the country to effectively deal with the security challenge.

It is highly unlikely the latest attack will be the last attempt.

The number of fatalities resulting from Garissa is likely to fuel the ambitions of the blood-thirsty perverts.

Thus, the morale, equipping and training of Special Forces meant to handle such incidents must get an immediate boost.

The fact that after arriving in Garissa University, the Recce squad neutralised the terrorists in under half an hour speaks volumes of their ability.

That Al-Shabaab attacked an educational facility paints a troublesome change of strategy, one that points towards hitting the mainly unarmed/unguarded institutions with high concentration of people.

As we seek to secure our borders, a question deserving urgent attention is, how do we deal with the possible hundreds of terror minds that have already infiltrated our society and are safely living with us, bidding time and waiting for an opportune time to strike?

There are certainly no easy solutions to these matters, but we must ask them and make the best effort at answering them.

We now have the name of one of the terrorists in the name of Mohammed Abdirahim Abdullahi, a former flashy law student at UoN.

Security teams may want to establish just when the radicalisation of this otherwise intelligent and promising lad-turned-killer animal began. Was it in high school? University?

At his local mosque? Who were his contacts in Eastleigh? Possible fellow recruits based on his networks? Who were the likely indoctrinators? Have they been apprehended or are still on the loose to continue the exploits of their death industry?

This is the sort of hard work and ugly truths we must confront to make our towns and villages safe again.

Is it too difficult for the National Intelligence Service to develop sufficient details to monitor potential suspects? Is it true that religious radicalisation is going on spewing out zealots ready to kill and maim even the most vulnerable in our society?

Finally, for us ordinary citizens, what role can we play in making our country safe again?

Which valuable security information do we have and should pass to security agents before it is too late?Which of our family members, neighbours, political, religious and business contacts are up to no good?

What are we willing to do about it? Who do we know to be fanning religious extremism either through their ideology, wealth, influence or political connections under the guise of freedom of worship, marginalisation and human rights?

We must appreciate and play our respective roles. This applies to the custom official at the border, the policewoman on patrol on our roads, the entire Government security machinery, the human rights activists, religious leaders, the Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces, patriotic citizens... everyone.

Any weak link in that chain exposes us all.