Open letter to Police IG Douglas Kanja

Dear Douglas Kanja,

This column should have sent you this open letter soon after your assumption of office as the fifth Inspector General (IG) of National Police Service under the post 2010 constitutional order. But to quote Paul’s letter to Philippians, we lacked opportunity.

Rising to the very top of our law and order infrastructure remains a shining vote of confidence in what a fine and diligent officer you have been.

We, the young people of this country, promise you our unconditional support to secure our country, make the streets safe and our neighbourhoods secure. The institution you lead is the vanguard of a constitutional order. 

You sent the right signals when you stepped into Vigilance House and on day one, you resolved the storm that was threatening to become a crisis: The tiff between the Judiciary, on the one hand, and the former acting IG on the other.

Brilliant leaders are seen in moments of crisis. Bwana IG, I write this open letter to underscore the fact that crime levels remain high and Kenyans’ lives are being snuffed out daily by criminals.

In the last couple of days, at least two Kenyans have lost their lives in the hands of criminals who now seem unfazed by the law enforcement edifice that we have built painstakingly for years.

Willis Ayieko was a Human Resource manager at Wells Fargo. He had attended a funeral in western Kenya. He then disappeared into thin air just like that. His car was later abandoned by two men at a petrol station who afterwards majestically walked away.

Ayieko’s friends have eulogised him as a good guy from his days in Kenyatta University. His decomposing body was eventually discovered in the thicket by his family.

Another case, largely buried in obscurity but stinging worse than a pin scratch in the lung, was a young man called Thomas Kidi. A young prison warden constable. On his way home, he was attacked by thugs, robbed and fatally wounded. These two incidences largely unrelated reflect the reality of many Kenyans.

If either of them had any known political ambitions, so many people would have conveniently blamed the good men and women whom you lead. Your political superiors would not have been spared either. But you have proven to be an officer interested in nothing but results. We believe that you possess the tools, the aptitude, unique instinct and wisdom to put a material dent in the ongoing killings and disappearances.

Earlier in the year, our sisters staged a peaceful march to protest the rising cases of femicide. But nothing has changed. So many women and young girls are killed by their intimate partners. Men, on the other hand, disappear and then turn up dead.

As I make this plea, I know for a fact that we must build a large coalition of law and order. For no one man or institution can have all the answers to our societal challenges.

As our ally and friend, we the young people suggest that you point it out to your political superiors that high unemployment rates will always manifest in high crime rates.

As such, while we remain grateful for the massive investment made in the law enforcement agencies, the government must, as a matter of priority, invest in a productive economy that will give opportunity to the bulging youth population.

State sector jobs can never be enough. Not when the private sector is ravaged by a tax regime that has seen investors flee to the sidelines, carrying with them the much-needed financial flow. The inadequacy of state sector jobs is further complicated by the patronage networks that have choked the civil service like water hyacinth chocking Lake Victoria.

Bwana IG, if we fail to protect our people the risk of them finding alternatives would undermine our collective wellbeing and reputation as an oasis of peace in the Great Lakes region.

Mr Kidi is the convener of Inter-Parties Youth Forum.