VIPs don’t need bloated security detail

If there is anything stand-offs are good for, it is their propensity to produce exposés. And so last week, we were treated to some rancorous muscle twisting on the small matter of guns. You see, there are some big boys whose toys include stuff like guns, and are ringed by a retinue of gun-stashed, mean-looking fellows ready to crush your rib.

Then it happened that the Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery, a master of guns, touched some of these gadgets. Like all children who love toys, there was brouhaha as the boys came out throwing tantrums. In this mix, a pink cat jumped out of the bag. We got the dizzying figures of the massive security detail attached to VIPs, especially governors. Some have a whole infantry at their disposal.

This would not have been a big deal were it not that this luxury is at the expense of Wanjiku who is left to her own devices. Our police-civilian ratio is pitiful. Therefore, hogging a whole chunk of officers for a few personalities renders ours a classical Orwellian society. In simple terms it is scandalous, immoral even. Granted, the leadership package is a mixed bag of fortunes and risks. Therefore, leaders deserve security. But to seize everything, living crumbs for mwananchi who toil and soil, and failing to work out modalities to improve the lot of the mass security, is fraudulent and wicked. And characteristic of Kenya, the security stand-off was reduced to two trivialities: politics and ethnicity. Every commentator, including journalists, missed the nuances of security, the spectre that is haunting all Kenyans. In their oversimplified manner, they quickly saw a CORD versus Jubilee gladiator kind of contest. Some even insinuated that reducing the security of a governor, and revoking a gun licence of one man, is tantamount to an attack on a whole tribe. That’s how myopic we are.

When high-ranking politicians came out guns blazing to defend their interests, they never uttered a word about   Wanjiku’s security. Folks, these politicians have the powers to make sound polices and demand their strict implementation. For instance, we would expect a politician to cut on the expenses on luxury to and channel the funds to security. Why they didn’t do that for your sake? It is not that the government is innocent in these theatrics. The CS should in fact shed light as to how Joho owned a riffle, a reserve for government forces, in contravention of the Firearms Act. So, how many other illegal licences have been issued to that effect? But no, no one demanded radical reforms on the security system. Clearly, money and power have obfuscated the consciences and intellectual faculties of the elite. Indeed, the security saga has exposed the raw greed and egoism of our leaders. Sadly, folks, its at your expense.