Insecurity still a challenge even as security agents reassure the public

By Anyang’ Nyong’o

I don’t want to sound panicky. Nor do I want to engage in unnecessary fear mongering. But I want to draw our attention to a problem that is only being looked at from a rather narrow perspective. This is the issue of insecurity.

Dealing with this problem professionally, smartly and politically will take us somewhere. Seeing it simply as a police or military issue will sink us to the abyss of even other more complicated problems.

The other day I listened to a conversation between two clergymen, which I was not expected to be part of.

But since I was reading a newspaper at a place not too far from them, they assumed an intruder like me did not necessarily invade their space. So they went on chatting rather freely, and in quite loud voices.

The subject matter was insecurity. The two emphasised the fact that they were sure our intelligence services must have information about what is going on but are not doing something effective about it. Kenya, they argued, is rated to have one of the best intelligence services in the Commonwealth.

How come so many bombs are exploding in Nairobi day in day out and nothing concrete is being done? Is there an agenda that is not known?

I thought the clergymen were being unfair. Something has been done though the problem does not seem to end.

May be there should be more talk shows by the security people just analysing how many bombs have been prevented from exploding by early intervention through quick intelligence gathering.

This would give Kenyans more confidence and reduce the fear, which is gripping our people.

They then went on to speculate just how many places are vulnerable in our cities.

These were mainly places where huge crowds gather almost on a daily basis like super markets, lecture halls in universities, Government offices and so on. How about if these terrorists were to hit offices along Harambee Avenue? They pondered.

I was flabbergasted. This is actually a possibility! What would happen were we to lose our President or Prime Minister? I have heard that the Central Business District has CCTV.  I hope all the buildings and facilities in the CBD are adequately taken care of.

But I would be happier if a few sniffer dogs were to be used to check carefully and smartly on the safety of the CBD and all heavily populated facilities in our Republic regarded to be at risk.

They then went on to discuss strikes which people are now engaging in every now and again without regard to the law, procedures and even the common good.

These, they argued, just increase insecurity in our country. Even when consultations are going on in Government regarding issues raised by workers, strikes pop up and stay on without regard to the established Collective Bargaining Agreement that should now reduce tensions between workers and employers.

Take, for example, the current strike by some nurses. Nobody has refused to attend to any of the demands by the nurses.

But before solutions are found within the framework of the law and established procedure, it is unfair to strike and to use force to harass, intimidate and even harm those who are working and are following the law.

What is even more alarming, the clergymen observed, is that all this is happening and the security forces are doing nothing to arrest the strike leaders who are going from one hospital to another intimidating working medical personnel.

They even send threatening text messages to those on duty as they continue to undertake these illegal activities.

One of these days, the clergymen observed, a bomb may explode in a hospital and it will be blamed on the strike leaders deliberately going around harassing those on duty to join the illegal strike.

The clergymen were emphatic that we cannot develop if we continue to be a people who have very little regard for law and order. The Constitution gives us plenty of rights and freedoms, but it does not do so to make us undisciplined and ungovernable.

Our rights must be exercised with regard to the rights of others as well. Quite often this requires substantial discipline and introspection before we do something, which excites us but deeply harms others.

Fascinating, I thought. But since I did not have time to introduce myself and try to engage in a conversation I was not part of, I folded my newspaper and left.

But the issues did not leave me. Under the circumstances we live in today, insecurity is around us all the time and we cannot regard it as a problem that only the Government can solve. Do we, for example, make things worse by what we say in public?

Or what we whisper in our small groups regarding how we ourselves can “fix” our enemies or rivals by exploiting the atmosphere of insecurity?

It is rumored that in the urban areas there are certain thugs on hire that people use to fix their enemies! Surely such practices just make the insecurity situation worse.

They should not be ignored in the midst of the explosion of bombs by much larger terrorist groups.

The writer is Minister for Medical Services and ODM Secretary General