| KAIKAI'S KICKER | POLICE, STAND FOR CONSTITUTION!

On my kicker tonight, it is a relief that the National Police Service is finally acquiring new uniforms after what has been a rather tragic gamble with fashion and aesthetics. But beyond the uniforms, there are more important issues to discuss with the National Police Service as Kenya marks 16 years of the 2010 Constitution. The Constitution was born out of the painful lessons of our past — many of them involving the police service, or the police force as it was then known. There was political repression, arbitrary arrests, torture, disappearances and orchestrated violence. The 2010 Constitution was, in many ways, a response to a police force that had too often been used as an instrument of political control. Its promise was simple: never again should the machinery of the state become the machinery of a political party. And nowhere is that promise more important than within the National Police Service. Article 243 established the National Police Service as a national service, not a government or party militia. Article 244 requires the police to uphold the highest standards of professionalism and discipline, prevent corruption, promote transparency and accountability, and comply with constitutional standards on human rights and fundamental freedoms. In other words, the police are not supposed to be the government's hired muscle. They are not supposed to be the President's political enforcers. They are not supposed to be the opposition's tormentors. They are not supposed to be bodyguards for ruling-party goons. And they certainly are not supposed to become goons themselves. The Constitution deliberately created another important firewall between political power and policing. Article 245 establishes the office of the Inspector-General, who shall exercise independent command over the National Police Service. And Article 245(4) is even more explicit: no person may give a direction to the Inspector-General concerning the investigation of an offence, the enforcement of the law against a particular person, or the employment, assignment, promotion, suspension or dismissal of an individual police officer. But here is the uncomfortable truth: an independent office of the Inspector-General of Police is yet to be fully realised, 16 years down the line. In practice, we have beautiful constitutional language on paper, but a section of police officers who behave like a political militia. The police service must draw the line between policing political violence and participating in political violence. They must draw a line between arresting hate mongers and intimidating political opponents. There is also a difference between a police officer doing his duty and a police officer behaving like a goon — whether in uniform or plain clothes. On this Constitution anniversary, the police must understand something very clearly: contrary to the common public-service language, you are not servants of the government of the day. You are servants of the Republic. Governments change. Presidents change. Political parties win and lose elections. But the Constitution and the National Police Service remain. And when political instructions collide with constitutional duty, the Constitution must win. The Inspector-General must therefore defend the independence of the service — not merely in speeches, but through the conduct of officers under his command. Senior commanders must refuse to turn the police into political foot soldiers. Police officers must refuse to become instruments of partisan violence. And politicians must stop imagining that because they control the state, they own the police. They don't. The police belong to the Republic. And the Republic belongs to its citizens. So, as Kenya celebrates 16 years of the 2010 Constitution, the National Police Service should carry out an audit of its mandate, especially in the wake of the recent rise in the politics of goons. That is my kicker.