Charting a New Path to Secure Kenya

By Lilian Museka

Kenya has experienced a series of terror attacks which since 2012 have claimed lives of more than 600 people. This is tragic.  The Garrisa University College is the deadliest as well as 1998 al-Qaeda bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi.

There has emerged several consensus locally and international that  Kenya has very corrupt security and law enforcement systems, accountability and oversight of the security and laws enforcement agencies is very weak and compromised, character and structure of the security agencies is very weak with little integration and coordination.

Law enforcement and security agencies still use old failed methods to tackle sophisticated crime and resources allocated to security agencies are very limited compared to other unnecessary sectors like Parliament and still worse the little resources allocated are largely siphoned out. 

This state of affairs is despite existence of fairly progressive constitution that has whole chapter of security and pieces of the  legislation passed in 2011 to overhaul the police, intelligence and defense forces in Kenya, not much progress has been made.

There is more tough political talk than action from top government security officials. International community led by United States of America, Britain, Sweden , European Union among others continue to pour huge amount of resources and other crucial support assistance  to security  and law enforcement with little progress on the ground.

International Centre for Policy and Conflict Executive Director Ndung’u Wainaina says it was time to make a different turn and change things.

“The starting point is major reforms, restructure and reorganization of entire security and law enforcement system to address systemic structural, institutional, cultural and procedural failures.”

In a policy brief from ICPC, a new strategy of strengthening and tooling the civilian institutions to thoroughly scrutinize, monitor and oversee the work of the national police service and other security agencies is paramount now.

Further, building capacity for civilian security bodies and other strategic stakeholders like internal security department, parliamentary departmental committees on security, civil society, private sector and media is crucial in order to guarantee comprehensive operational, budgetary, procurement and management oversight and enforce transparency and accountability mechanisms over security and law enforcement agencies.