Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has slammed political leaders accusing them of indecency in dragging law enforcers in political debates and urged the latter to remain firm in enforcing the law.
In what appeared to be a veiled attack to the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) led by Deputy President William Ruto, the CS said police are not mediators of bribery claims or implementers of false political promises.
“It is not upon police officers to mediate bribery contracts. And it is not the job of police officers to follow up false promises made by politicians and mediate conflicts arising from those false promises.
It is upon political leaders to conduct themselves decently and manage their affairs effectively,” said Matiang’i.
He spoke after a four-hour meeting with senior security officers at the Kenya School of Curriculum Development (KICD) in Nairobi in the wake of raging political temperatures and accusations by a section of political groupings accusing police of impartiality and meddling in political affairs.
“Don’t drop the guard. The threat of terror is real and out there. We have disrupted many terror plans through public cooperation but we urge for continued help to tame this problem. We are going to be more present in rallies public meetings and campaign rallies.
We will have more of our officers from the DCI and the NCIC embedded in some of these political activities to detect crime when it is committed and document evidence, we need to support prosecution of such cases.” Matiang’i affirmed.
Matiangi’s bareknuckle pronouncements comes days after President Uhuru Kenyatta urged the security sector players to act firmly in accordance with the law after the UDA party petitioned the president and the International Criminal Court (ICC) over what they termed as targeted political persecution.
UDA’s petition was written following the chaotic rally at Jacaranda in Nairobi.
“I know that sometimes we are dealing with the case of the death of decency in the conduct of political affairs in the country but I would ask our political leaders to be a bit more decent and responsible because they are as responsible for this country as we are ourselves.
Politics and common sense are not mutually exclusive. The endemic false promising of money to the people, incredible amount of bribery and ferrying young people and sometimes mismanaging those organizations on the ground that turn violent remain a challenge to the security agencies.” He added.
Among those present were Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho, Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai among other senior officers.
During the meeting, all police commanders were asked to map out all potential security hotspots in the run-up to the polls and put together security contingency measures to address any eventuality.