Why Kavuludi must stop playing King Canute stunt

By Moses Kuria

NAIROBI, KENYA: The Attorney General Githu Muigai this week published the National Police Service (Amendment) Bill and the National Police Service Commission (Amendment) Bill.

He immediately forwarded them to the Commission for Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) to solicit public feedback. It beats logic why the good Professor could not directly invite the public to comment on the two Bills. I argued here last week that the CIC has outlived its usefulness; so my feedback is directed to the AG. There are three fundamental issues that need to be put into proper perspective in the ensuing debate on the National Police Service. Firstly, it is unfair to reduce the debate to a personality clash between the Inspector General David Kimaiyo and National Police Service Commission (NPSC) Chairman Johnson Kavuludi.

The soft-spoken Mr Kimaiyo can hardly win any argument against the voluble Mr Kavuludi. Kimaiyo is essentially a policeman. Kavuludi is a politician. Secondly, there are genuine concerns within the Police Service surrounding recruitment, appointment, deployment, transfer and promotion of officers. The rank and file and indeed the public would like to see a fair degree of ‘corporate governance’, openness and transparency on these crucial functions. This does not, however, mean that the solution comes with despondency and indiscipline within the force. The NPSC is not meant to be a parallel police force unless we missed that memo. The National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi is the chair of the Parliamentary Service Commission. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga is the Chair of the Judicial Service Commission. How come Inspector General Kimaiyo is not the Chairman of NPSC?

Thirdly, history has taught us that we can only weaken the police command structure at our own peril. The civil society loudmouths who are today egging on Kavuludi have been very vocal on the excesses, real or imagined, of the police force but have greeted the killing of police officers by criminals with silence that gnaws. NPSC is giving Kenyans an object lesson on the obtuseness, inexperience, incompetence and insensitiveness of too many constitutional commissions under the new dispensation.

To be quite blunt about it, Kavuludi is playing King Canute with the ongoing outbreak of serious crime and terrorism in Kenya and doing so on our time, resources and to the detriment of limb, life and property. The story is told of how Canute, a Dutch king, had his chair placed at the seashore just before the tide came in and how he commanded the waters not to touch him because, after all, they were part of his kingdom and he was the absolute ruler. The moral of the story is that time and tide wait for no one, not even vainglorious monarchs.  Serious violent crime is happening on a daily basis across Kenya while Al Shabaab’s terrorist grenade and assault rifle attacks afflict Kenyans with an unprecedented regularity.

However, Kavuludi’s NPSC, which is clearly out to recreate the Police Service in its own image, is holding up its hand as a constitutional commission and requiring everyone to be frozen in position, keep still and await its deliberations over many a cup of tea and coffee, many a fine meal, wine and brandy in many a five-star hotel or tourism lodge retreat/seminar/workshop as it goes about its virgin recruitment of top police officers.

Taking its sweet time, the NPSC indicated in its advertisement that all applicants had to be university graduates with 10 years’ experience of policing. This was disingenuous in the extreme, for the Kavuludi team knew all too well that such cops, who, moreover, needed not only degrees but 10 years of distinguished service, could not be sourced in such numbers from the Service as presently constituted.

Kimaiyo took one look at Kavuludi and his smug team of would-be civil society do-gooders and went ahead and appointed 47 county commanders from among the ranks of experienced police officers already at his disposal.

If there is one thing Kimaiyo knows, it is that crime and terrorism, like time and tide, wait for no one. Whatever the shortcomings of the Police Service, the last thing Kenyans want is a national security edifice erected along civil society paradigms. Reforming the police force is a must. However, national suicide is not part of our international obligations.