AJUOK: Masengeli court snub: Buck stops with President Ruto

I was sleepily watching my favourite Reggae musician, I dozed off and awoke to an interview with author and relationship coach, Jennifer Karina. I was about to browse but noted the brilliant and simple way Coach Karina was delivering her message. I don’t usually like listening to all these ‘life coaches’ who pop up in every corner and online channel, offering a cacophony of hollow relationship advice, but I found Mrs Karina refreshing in her messaging, concise in her content and focused on real-life issues.

The author was delving into how to restore a marriage after a stormy period, either caused by infidelity or other usual spouses’ failings. Unlike many of her counterparts, who make the devil a pet scapegoat for all marital woes, Mrs Karina asked spouses to “uphold honesty and truthfully discuss all the details from the fallout for healing to take effect. She also advised spouses in this scenario to “not tire of answering questions” because “we have already discussed this repeatedly” wasn’t a philosophy for healing.

I am reminded about this by the political marriages that happen every electoral cycle, and the “emergency ones” between elections. In these, details of nationhood, and clear threats to unity do not feature in the discussions and settlements. Instead, partners in these coalitions simply brush over these fundamental issues and move on to the “tender phase” of governance. It is no wonder corruption succeeds itself through regimes, the education sector remains a mess and the key agriculture sector is perennially in decline.

However, my concern for today will be Kenya’s much-maligned police service. From as far back as I can remember, the citizenry has always complained about the conduct of the Police Service. Recent protests have only magnified the perception of the police as rogue officers wearing balaclavas, shooting unarmed protesters, driving around in unmarked vehicles and even sparing a moment to tear-gas Raila Odinga’s birthday cake.

It’s worrisome that as soon as a truce and settlement are reached, like the one between President William Ruto and loosely defined “ODM leaders”, in assembling a new Cabinet, these officers are allowed to integrate back into service. As if nothing happened.

This entrenches the unprofessional behaviour of the officers within the larger force and encourages the culture of impunity the police have struggled to shake off.

But now, acting Inspector General of Police Gilbert Masengeli, in ignoring seven court summons and being sentenced to jail for contempt, has shown the entire world the rot in the service goes to the very top.

The Police Service and the Judiciary play complementary roles in criminal justice, so one would think the two, or at least the top officers of both, would see the need to respect each other’s roles and mandates. Clearly, the success of one institution depends on the other. Well, we can also safely make the assumption that Masengeli is ignorant of this fact.

On any given day, the police drag suspects to courts all over the country. The irony will be lost on them, because the police boss himself does not respect the courts and the Judiciary in general, so why should they? His juniors open up the cells every morning to deliver suspects to the courts, posing a moral question.

Masengeli has been brazen in showing contempt of the court. Men and women in uniform are creatures in a very tight chain of command. By that yardstick, the acting IG can only be doing this if he is confident he enjoys protection from higher up. Which is not difficult to pinpoint, because the Inspector General reports to the Commander in Chief. Is President William Ruto himself, by omission or commission, allowing a senior security officer to disregard the Judiciary so publicly, and what does that portend, in the long term?

The issues for which the acting IG had been summoned by the court were themselves grave enough; the disappearance of three activists in Kitengela, who went missing on August 19 and haven’t been seen since. The emerging culture of kidnapping by shadowy characters driving around in their unmarked Subarus, is a negation of every principle of freedom and liberty that this country has worked to achieve over the years. And let’s face it: apart from the security forces, no other institution or organisation has the ability to move around in convoys of vehicles kidnapping citizens, some in broad daylight, and others in the middle of the night.

The pattern and nature of abductions have certain objectives. First, they are conducted in such a way that the usual police command has no idea of what is going on. This way, deniability is enhanced and whatever happens to these victims, the police service can feign ignorance. Worst of all, they aim to bypass the constitutional requirements for official arrests, which set a threshold upon which a suspect can be held by police.

This gap is one in which criminality thrives, because, on the assumption that these are police operations, the officers intriguingly abrogate to themselves the role of prosecutor and judge, while reporting to unknown bosses about patently illegal activities.

There is a tendency of new rulers in this country to conveniently look the other way when the police commit atrocities against citizens, obviously believing that they can use the service to play partisan politics. For this reason, the small matter of genuine police reforms takes a back burner as soon as the erstwhile fighters for a better police service are in power.

They even had the name changed from police “force” to “service”, in to improve their image and create better relations between the public and the police. Ultimately however, an institution whose officers and bosses consistently exhibit rogue tendencies, becomes a long-term national security threat, because any trigger of instability would go south under its watch.

If you ask Kenyans at random, the biggest issues that should be on the table right now include the cost of living, school fires, security, jobs and possibly the pending reconstitution of the IEBC to safeguard democracy. Yet, unwittingly, acting IG Masengeli has driven himself into the national attention without deserving it. A random Kenyan would probably say that given our difficult circumstances, the last thing we need atop the police structure is a sort of tin-pot dictator with megalomaniac tendencies.

All this boils down to: why does the President let this matter slide another day? And back to my “truthful discussions in marriage” analogy: have the new partners of government co-opted from ODM placed this on the table as a condition for sustenance of their union? Or are Kenyans on their own?

ODM has said it and its supporters are perennial victims of police brutality and the party styles itself a long-terms fighter for police reforms.

Political commentator