Kenyans watched aghast as junior police officers stormed the office of the commissioner of prisons and frogmarched Wycliffe Ogalo to DCI after his sacking following the disappearance of high-risk inmates from Kamiti Maximum Prison.
His plea to be treated with decorum fell on deaf ears as police commandos pushed him to a waiting car like a petty criminal. Who tipped the news outlets of his arrest, if not to humiliate him?
I am not justifying the ineptness common in our system, which has seen criminals escape from custody. In fact the Kamiti prison break bears the hallmark signature of the involvement of the system. The charade by the government is suspect and only deepens the mystery.
Persons in police custody have escaped under mysterious circumstances yet the Inspector General of Police has not beeng sacked unceremoniously. The latest was child killer Masten Wanjala. Yet IG Hilary Mutyambai is still in office. Wanjala was a domestic terrorist.
We have had cases of police officers losing their guns or colluding with thugs to torment civilians. There are numerous reported cases of blatant abuse of police powers against civilians, cases of police in uniform engaging in violent crimes.
Criminals, including terror suspects, have found their way to Kenya past police checkpoints.
However, the police remain untouchable. The law must be applied equally, there are no sacred cows. For the IG to send officers to harass a colleague of almost equal rank, parading him before the media, was an unnecessary evil. It will go a long way towards creating unnecessary beef between the two departments.
