Critics missed the point on vetting of top officers

By Billow Khalid
billow.khalid @gmail.com

When the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) under its chairman Johnston Kavuludi embarked on police vetting, mixed reactions followed.

The critics of the performance of the officers conveniently shoved a side the substantive issues of national policing and security, context and objectives of the vetting process as provided for by the National Police Service Act, 2011, Article 7(2) on “vetting to assess suitability and competence.” Instead they wrongly put their foresight on the non – issues of the so called “opulence, wives” and demeamount of the officers. While on opulence, meaning people who are extremely rich, an analyst in one major daily wrote “What captivated the public was the wealth of some of the police officers.” I have closely followed on TV the interview of the entire group of police officers vetted. No one could remember seeing or hearing any revelations amounting to what the American might call “jaw- dropping”, shocking expose of extreme wealth owned by any one officer.

We heard instead, of few officers, not even representative of the 78,000 members of the service, who were resourceful enough to make with the support of their families some modest assets here and there in the country. Some of the assets gleefully cited were undeveloped plots and few rental flats owned by individuals’ officers who have been to UN missions, remained in the police service and on the State pay roll for almost a life time! To call that “opulence” worthy of public “captivation” is to make those two words meaningless.

Our young men and women join the security services at the tender ages of between 18 – 26. As I know, once these young officers graduate from their respective colleges and join their senior colleagues, they are received well and advised thus:

“There is huge personal opportunity cost for you and family for being an officer in this service, ensuring the safety of our people and country. Therefore join soon a Saving and Credit Cooperative Society of your choice (SACCO). Protect yourself against drugs and HIV and AIDs. Be loyal to the service. Obey the laws of the land. Continuously improve your personal educational level, skills and be masters of your domains, trades. Make early, wise decision on marriage. Build yourselves homes and take care of your parents. Educate your siblings and children when the time comes. Have positive dreams and seek help whenever in doubt. When the moment arrives for you to exit the service, for it must, you should be able to say proudly “I came, I saw, I conquered and I left behind something great for all Kenyans”. At the end of all these career progression will follow as a matter of course”.

In the vettings of the police officers, all we heard and saw were seasoned officers who surely applied these nuggets of wisdom from their mentors to their public and private lives. Messrs Omar Shurie, Francis Wanjohi and Leo Nyongesa did a remarkable thing for specifically crediting their children and wives for their career and business success. In any case there is no meaningful achievement a man seeks as one writer put it, “no great and honourable ambition he desires to gratify which is not directly related to either or both a mother and a wife.”

Conceptually, it should be appreciated that there is a great heterogeneity in a human organisation of the size of 78,000 people. Some officers will achieve great career of being “bravest, noblest and smartest,” family and even distinction of wealth whatever the prevailing circumstances. Others would be outliers, stragglers regardless of the degree of welfare and developmental support provided.

Pace-setters are copied resulting institutional quality performance and self – renewal as the stragglers continue jumping ship for more attractive engagements elsewhere. In the Kenya Air Force they call this evolutionary phenomenon, “selection of the smartest (SOS).” The threat facing us today is not the interview performance of officers who served their country with their lives. The greatest threats facing us today and in the next 10 or so years are ‘the crisis of our public finance management systems and Al Shabaab.