Not again! Kimaiyo mourns Garissa terror attack

Being a person in the security sector for a long time, I was shocked to say again another one – Kimaiyo.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 7 – Former Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo who succumbed to pressure to step down for failing to contain terror attacks in the country has told Capital FM News that the killing of 148 in Garissa on Thursday is proof that the problem did not lie with him or the office he held.

Kimaiyo said the responsibility for the massacre of 142 students of the Garissa University College and six security personnel lay with the Kenyan community as a whole.

“We have allowed our children to be radicalised and parents have a responsibility over that. The society has a responsibility over that,” he said.

He spoke on Tuesday after donating blood for the casualties of Thursday’s Al Shabaab attack.

“Being a person in the security sector for a long time, I was shocked to say again another one. Again another one means why these people are attacking innocent members of the society while I was in my farm at home celebrating the festivities of the Easter holiday,” he gave as his motivation to donate blood.

Kimaiyo was joined by Mining Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala in the blood donation and he too took the position that Thursday’s horrific events might have been avoided had the Muslim community in Northern Kenya taken on a more proactive role.

He questioned why North Eastern leaders waited for the Garissa attack to reactively root out those members of their community who finance and sympathise with Al Shabaab operatives.

“I believe we should have named them long time ago,” he told Capital FM News.

READ: NE leaders vow to expose Shabaab financiers, sympathizers

It was however reported that the father to a law student who took part in Thursday’s mass shooting had reported his son as missing and suspected of having gone to Somalia, the operations base for the Al Shabaab.

“The father had reported to the authorities that his son had gone missing and suspected the boy had gone to Somalia,” Interior Spokesman Mwenda Njoka told Capital FM News on Saturday.

READ: Slain Garissa terrorist studied law at Nairobi University

About The Author

OLIVE BURROWS

With a decade of storytelling under her belt, Olive Burrows has been with Capital FM for the last four years and perhaps most notably interviewed US President Barack Obama. Committed to asking the hard questions and telling the story in the most engaging way possible, she has also interviewed Melinda Gates, a UK Minister and severally had the opportunity to sit across from President Uhuru Kenyatta and address the pressing issues of the day. Other notables she has had occasion to seek answers from are UN Secretary General António Guterres and John Kerry in his time as US Secretary of State.

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