Neither Protected Nor Prepared.
It's no secret that the country continues to struggle with both
protecting itself and being prepared for life’s disastrous surprises (both
natural and manmade). This continued lack was brought to the forefront of the nation’s
general consciousness during the course of this week.
It all began last week with twin explosions
that occurred too close for comfort in Mombasa’s city centre (at the Stadium
View Bar and Restaurant) and another in Mtwapa (at a Christian prayer meeting).
That was how April began. Shocked and shaken
up we soldiered on…
Then came the April fool’s joke that was
all too serious and none too funny; which one you ask, well the one where the 5th
floor of Kimathi House on Kimathi Street in the nation’s Capital caught on fire
due to an electrical fault. On this occasion the firemen where on the scene
within minutes –which is not normally the case- but found themselves rather out
of their depth in combatting the furious orange ball of flames that continued
to consume everything in its wake while the firemen were reduced to mere
spectators, because their fire hoses only reached up to the third floor! Eventually the blaze was quelled but not
before the KK Guards and G4S security firms came on to the scene with ladders
in tow and the arrival of a few more
fire trucks with working cranes attached (who at first seemed to water the
trees more than anything). A blaze that should have been put out within an hour
of sparking instead took roughly 2 hours to quell. Our firemen and women came out of the fire
looking like a guard dog with no teeth, through no fault of their own. Surely we
cannot expect them to do their jobs to the best of their abilities without the
sufficient tools to perform! We were ill prepared and this was not the first
time we have been caught woefully unprepared for what came our way.
As the week came to a close we were to be shocked
once again when splashed across our TV screens were the disconcerting images of
GSU Police men brutally beating a young man from Kirita in Trans Nzoya County. Conduct
not only unbecoming of officers but seemingly common place – this is not the
first time officers have been caught on camera excreting needless force on a member
of the public. (2007 Post Election Violence) The video, of the seemingly very
young man being whipped and kicked around by the GSU officers, to which Police Commissioner
Mathew Iteere replied that the incident happened in 2009 and
that he will personally peruse developments into the investigation… The whole
incident and indeed the past week or so made me and no doubt many of my fellow
Kenyans think and to a large extent worry about whether or not we are truly safe.
To
my common man understanding of the way things ought to be, the police are meant
to make citizens feel safe, secure and protected beyond a shadow of a doubt but
with the actions of those GSU in Trans Nzoya
I find myself being fearful of and unprotected by those who I should
trust with my life.
In case you haven't seen the video I speak of above, here it is
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