Against all odds: How Dekow went from bus conductor to interpol officer

Looks can be deceiving.

At a glance, Abdikadir Dekow doesn’t seem like a man who could complete a military-type endurance run or do 100 push-ups. Wrong.

Or pack a gun, fight Pokot bandits, handle what his commander cynically called nyama choma, only to find burnt corpses. Or stop patients from committing a clan massacre in a hospital. But he did.

At 44, he’s fit as a fiddle, free of alcohol, cigarettes, or anything many would use to cope with suffering and hardship that pushed him to the limits. He was brought up singlehandedly by his mother, who sold tomatoes outside her iron-sheet single-room house, after his father abandoned them when he was too young to comprehend such cruelty.

Born in Iftin sublocation in Garissa county, Dekow was among the pioneers of Iftin Primary, a school built by village women using old iron sheets and mud so poor children could get an education.

His determination was clear early on when, tired of being bitten by bugs at the school, he made his own chair, while others sat on the floor during classes. “All the learners sat on the floor. But I took the initiative and made my own stool using broken timber and nails,” Dekow told the Star in an interview.

After Class 5, his mother’s business grew, she sold charcoal and other items and sent him to a better school, Young Muslim Primary. Dekow did not let his mother down, and in 1995 he scored 525 marks out of 700 in his KCPE exam, emerging the best student in Garissa and second-best in North Eastern.

He was accepted by Maseno High and Nairobi School. He despaired for lack of school fees but he received a full scholarship, thanks to Mikono International, a Japanese organisation providing educational and medical support. He was among three top KCPE exam students in North Eastern region to get full scholarships.

He joined Nairobi School in 1996 and this was the first time he ever boarded any vehicle. The community contributed Sh3,000 for pocket money, asking the bus driver to ensure Dekow reached Eastleigh, the home of an uncle who worked as a restaurant watchman. “The next morning, we went to school outfitters at Sarit Centre where we bought my uniform and necessary items,” he said.

He got a B plain in his KCSE exam in 1999, but for lack of fees, he had to return to Garissa to hustle. “I had to help my mother raise my three siblings, so I did odd jobs,” Dekow said.

His first real job was as a ticket officer at Gentle Bus Service, earning Sh6,000 a month, before he was promoted to a conductor, where he received an extra Sh200 daily for lunch.

He later became a storekeeper at a yard where construction company Spencon had a two-year project to install water infrastructure. He earned Sh8,000 a month and free ride to and from work by a company car.

He got married at age 21, and his first-born son is now 20 and in law school.

When the project ended, Dekow was again jobless. With a family and extra mouths to feed, life again became a struggle.

In October 2005, he went for police recruitment and was rejected on grounds of over-qualification in his KCSE exam. "They told me they don’t take B plain students and said I should go to university,” he said. “I cried and begged for a chance. One officer interceded and I joined GSU.”

“But that same week, the whole exercise was cancelled countrywide on grounds of corruption. I was back to square one,” Dekow said.

In March 2006, he was easily admitted and started a nine-month course at the GSU training school. He became a squad leader. In GSU, he served in many areas. He battled Pokot bandits in Kainuk in Lodwar, getting a bullet to the left leg.

One day, while on radio duties in Turbi, Marsabit, a call came in requesting officers with a certificate in computer studies and an international language apart from English to submit their names and service numbers.

Dekow applied, having taken computer studies at Nairobi School and French at the Alliance Française, where he did a diploma. This application would impact his career months later.

“Taking the courses was just to escape from the gruelling life of a GSU officer. These guys go through a lot. We must give them respect always,” he said

His most harrowing moment came during the 2007-08 post-election violence when he was serving in Naivasha police station, in Mirera area. In 2007, he was a horse rider of the Anti-Stock Theft Unit and his team had to go to Kamahuha and Kiota.

He encountered a dark PEV moment.

“Youth armed with machetes were killing Indians in the area, taking advantage of the violence to steal from innocent people. By that time, we had no food, no water. I went for three days without eating because there was nowhere to get food,” Dekow said.

Then Naivasha MP-elect John Mututho brought them soda and bread.

One night, their commanders came and asked if they wanted nyama choma. Dekow and his colleagues were excited. “But then we were given gloves, which surprised us. We were taken to a building where there were burnt bodies of 22 people. The odour was that of human bodies burning, and we were ordered to take them to the mortuary,” he said.

Outside, they came across an abandoned shop with a fridge full of sodas. While the commander looked for the owner so they could buy sodas, one office crashed the fridge, took the drinks and gave them to fellow officers.

“I tell Kenyans to cherish the peace we have. Let us not take peace for granted. War is bad,” he said.

One day, he was walking through Naivasha with his gun, a weapon he never wanted to touch. He was stressed and exhausted. A car pulled up alongside him.

“The driver asked for directions to the nearest hospital. When I peeped in, I saw his left hand was in the passenger seat next to him. It had been chopped off,” Dekow said.

He took the man to the hospital, where the management begged him to stay and provide security. He guarded the hospital for a week.

“The mortuary was full and bodies had been piled on each other, some on the floor outside the mortuary door,” Dekow said.

One day, in the ward a patient spoke in Luo. Immediately, six other patients jumped up, wanting to attack him. Dekow had to shoot in the air to prevent them from attacking the patient and causing a massacre.

“I was very angry and shouted at them. Here we were, all in the ward, suffering different injuries, with very little help coming and yet they still wanted to act like animals. They eventually calmed down and later even started talking to each other,” Dekow said.

That very act of preventing a hospital massacre earned him his first promotion.

He was later assigned to Nakuru’s St Mary’s Hospital for 18 days, during which President Mwai Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga shook hands.

When he got back to the police camp, it was filled with Internally Displaced Persons.

One day while on day guard duty, a radio call came in asking for six men to report to CID headquarters for interviews. “Remember the application I made using the computer certificate? Well, my name was sixth on the list,” he said.

An MP gave him a lift in a chopper to Wilson Airport and then gave him Sh2,000 for a taxi to CID headquarters. He came second out of 55 applicants. They only needed six men.

Dekow was transferred from the Anti-Stock Theft Unit to the CID, and that week, he was sent for orientation at Interpol. There he learnt I-24/7, the secure global communications system linking law enforcement agencies for sharing urgent and sensitive information. It involved tracking the world’s most wanted people.

“We were the pioneers of the Interpol Mombasa office,” he said. There, he and others brought wanted criminals to book and largely ended the theft of high-end cars.

He rose to a very senior position at Interpol, and one day, he quit.

But not before enrolling at the University of Nairobi for a diploma course in project management; he then enrolled for a higher course in project management, and then a master's.

Now, he is undertaking his PhD in project management, majoring in monitoring and evaluation.  “I am soon graduating with a PhD from the UoN and I’m happy my dream of becoming a scholar was not shattered, although at one point I almost dropped out,” Dekow said.

While studying for his master's, he again went broke and couldn’t raise the fees.

He approached prominent businessman and philanthropist Abu Joho who paid for a whole year for his degree.

“That generous guy made me promise myself that I would help needy people get an education. Now I am sponsoring an orphan girl at secondary school in Kadzandani,” he said.

Today, he is a happy family man with a wife and six children. He loves football and is a huge Arsenal fan. His past is always with him, but he looks to the future and knows he can handle what it throws at him.