Japhet Koome: Lived by bluffs and bullets, felled by volley of hashtags

Former Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome. [File, Standard]

In the end, it was not the stones he spent a lifetime learning how to duck and allegedly pelt, skills he would later teach at Kiganjo Mixed, that got him out of office.

It was the things that Japhet Nchebere Koome - the former Inspector General of Police - never came across in the Kiganjo curriculum, as a student and later teacher. Hashtags. 

Placards also came in handy for the protesting Generation Zs and Millennials, but Bwana Koome knew that sheets of paper were useless when soaked in water. And so he unleashed water cannons not to itch anyone, but to smudge the descriptive language baddies use on their placards.

The youths didn't have flattering words for Koome, a man they now want to be handed a soft landing as a permanent envoy to the Hague.

It made sense that the tough-talker, who spat gallons whenever he spoke, snuck out the backdoor. How would he explain that he had 'resigned' (code for 'kuachishwa kazi') because of hashtags, a word he would need countless slow takes to pronounce?

Chances are that the booted police chief knows nothing about X, the social media platform, not his new prefix. With his departure on Friday, a load must have been taken off the 57-year-old's back.

It was easier to deal with Raila Odinga, he must have thought since the Gen Z revolution began. Even if they were to protest in the middle of the sea, Tinga's protesters were sure to find projectiles. And Koome would find a justification for the slaughter that was sure to follow.

'Jeshi ya Baba' also enjoyed teargas and being the caring man Koome is, he would supply them to their satisfaction.

He always had the perfect plan on how to deal with opposition supporters. He would start by "banning" their protests, a mandate only he knows where he got, before daring them to a duel.

By bringing stones to a gunfight, there was only one way it would end. Death. Then denials. A pat on the back from "above" completed the cycle that shielded killer cops from accountability. 

The anti-Raila rule book, which Kiganjo Mixed alumni reportedly learned by heart, proved ineffective against Gen Zs, armed only with the national flag and "we are peaceful" chants. 

The youngsters also documented their protests on their iPhones, making it difficult for Koome to claim that they had colluded with morgue attendants to hire bodies and force the death toll up.

The engineer had learned his lesson when journalists captured his "boys" brutalising them during last year's protests, leaving him to speak softly, a job his long lips are not accustomed to.

He had been in office as IG for less than two years, enough time for the nation to realise he was cut out for a different job. He could have done well as a matatu evangelist or a heckler -- he has a voice robust enough for both jobs.

But he preferred to play the hatchet man, ready at hand to do his bosses' bidding. When the masters demanded that Koome ban protests, the former police chief did so with little care that he had no such powers.

He loved calling bluffs, too, as he did when opposition leaders said they only needed their supporters' protection. Koome would withdraw police security from government critics, leaving them to find masses willing to take a bullet for them.

The ex-police boss spent enough time with politicians that he ended up sounding like them. Amid a push that he shoulders the responsibility for police brutality, he would remember that perhaps the only qualification that had landed him the job was his ethnic background, which he said last year had made him a target.

Before his immediate former job, Koome served as the Principal of Kiganjo Mixed, where he was in charge of churning out graduates fully equipped to deal with Tinga. Before then, he had served as Nairobi Regional Commander, where his dislike for protests first showed.

In his previous jobs, Koome did not leave much of a legacy the public would recall him for. Even the Head of State struggled to remember the name when he appointed him to replace Hillary Mutyambai.

In 20 months, he has turned the tide and earned a spot in the enviable "must go" class. He has successfully kept the mteja on the end of the police's emergency line unreached.

Kenya's unsung hero also managed to have the service retain its torturous, abducting and killing ways and its blind eye and deaf ear to State-sanctioned criminality, such as the theft of sheep at the Kenyattas' Northlands farm.

Among the uniformed officers, Koome can boast that he kept their dignity by endlessly wrangling with the non-uniformed members of the National Police Service Commission.

A key regret from Koome's departure is that he did not show Kenyans where the election servers were located. He seemed to know where the servers were when he stopped Tinga from looking for them on the streets.

"Umesema unatafuta server Koinange Street, Harambee Street, Juja Road... kwani hiyo server iko kila mahali?" Koome had posed.