Who's To Blame?

Reading Kenya's pleas to the rest of the world to join her in the war against terrorism, one would be tempted to think that the war has just begun and that Kenya is the frontline. This statement has a part which is true and one which is erroneous.
Kenya is smarting from the recent attack in Westlands and was rudely reminded about the 1998 attack in Nairobi. This recent episode has particularly reflected quite badly against Kenya's reaction to acts of terror; the security agencies have come out as a bunch of blundering, fumbling and inefficient outfits, quick to ignore intelligence on criminal activity only to rush to the site of an attack and mess up the clues and evidence. After the attack in Westlands, unsubstantiated reports indicate that at least one of the attackers walked out of the mall among the rescued civilians and walked away despite the warnings from one of the survivors who saw the terrorist change his clothes to mingle with the victims.

Without being deliberately sub judice- there is a parliamentary inquiry on the recent attack going on- information in the public domain indicate that information as credible as from a Senator had been passed on to the relevant agencies regarding the attack long before it happened. What they did about it, we might never know.
In the recent past, criminal activities in Kenya, both in the rural and urban areas have taken a metamorphosis that ought to have woken the security agencies to the dangers and the face of the terrorist. Ordinary Kenyans now know the look of a grenade, they know the sound of one exploding, high powered guns, improvised explosive devices, widespread attacks on crowds without theft of property-these have become the calling card of the terrorist today. The police have witnessed this metamorphosis but have remained rooted in the past methods of crime detection and fighting, the immigration department have gone on their duties without regard to the dangers they pose the whole country. It is an open secret that foreigners (especially those with questionable backgrounds) find it easier to acquire identity documents (birth certificates, IDs or passports) than indigenous Kenyans. Our ports of entry and departure have primarily been charged with stopping Kenyans from venturing out of Kenya and welcoming all and sundry (criminal or otherwise, legal or illegal) into and out of Kenya. Criminals find Kenya a very suitable hub to connect to their destinations. Others find it convenient to transform themselves into Kenyans then move on to other countries.

Attacks in the public places, in churches and on police stations had increased but the security agencies did not seem to notice any difference. They did not change their tact and kept on the age-old pleas for the public to surrender any arms they could be harboring. They offered and kept extending amnesty periods. They refused to acknowledge that the animal they had been hunting had changed and that they were now the prey. Pronouncements from militant groups especially after operation 'Linda Nchi' did not seem to be related to the proliferation of military style grenade attacks carried out haphazardly all over the country.

When the rest of the world was fighting the war against terrorism, Kenya slept. Now, that slumber has catapulted us to the frontline of that war and we are asking the world to fight with us! We need to stay awake, work hard to catch up with the rest of the world in this war. We need to change our national psyche and start being proud of our nationality, to guard and jealously protect it. We need to develop and nurture national accountability-relevant agencies need to have relevant information in their domains. The government needs to streamline all databases for smooth information flow, correlation of such information as ID card, passport and electors registries, PIN  cards, registries of persons, motor vehicles, companies, etc just to name a few could so easily be synchronized especially due to the advanced information technology available today. Just a casual monitoring of such databases could deter acts harmful to our national security, but there is a catch here: these databases have to be there, and be accurate. This is why all players have to be accountable. The citizen needs to be registered, ID card obtained, property legally registered, residence known, etc. None of us needs to relax and it is noteworthy to remark that organization of this information could help steer national development. We keep re-tarmacking and rehabilitating old narrow roads and call them highways, instead of widening them and adding more lanes or restructuring them into dual carriage ways in synchrony with the increase in heavy large vehicle traffic on our roads-and then we go about passing blame after killer traffic accidents.

A bribe at the local registrar of persons office affords a terrorist an ID card and the said criminal sets up shop in your neighbourhood because the land-lord did not verify the source of cash that was offered for long-term lease without a bargain, and the house next door becomes a bomb or munitions factory. Your brother leases or sells a vehicle to terrorists unknowingly because they are able to pay for it dearly without a bargain. Without being patronising or seeming to praise things American, one cannot show up at a bank in the US with large amounts of cash to deposit without raising questions from the bank as to the source of the cash. Accountability is very vital to national security, and it starts from the individual all the way to government. As we go about looking for who blame for our failures, it would be prudent to look in the mirror and throw what blame is due to the person looking at you. The security agencies failed, yes, but the essence of their failure could be traced back to ourselves. When the president demands that the world ought to join Kenya, we need to realize that the world we are asking to join us has been awake and fighting terrorism all along, as we dozed off on the job. We played a role in frustrating their efforts by our slumber, we nurtured terrorism by our corruption, government ineptitude and official criminal impunity. We need to go to confession and seek our penance, then join the rest of the world.