NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 5 – The National Police Service (NPS) will from November roll out a comprehensive training programme that will equip the police officers to use non-lethal means to manage the public as the country approaches the 2022 general election.
Speaking during a International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Webinar on Elections and Security, Dominic Kisavi who heads the Elections Preparedness Secretariat at NPS Headquarters said the police officers have been unfairly treated like a ‘punching bag’.
He explained that work on the Election Security Manual began in 2020, in order to identify areas where the National Police Service has been weak, where it went wrong previously and bring out possible disconnect in how the National Police Service operates.
“Police have been accused of all manner of crimes, during elections apart from intimidation, police have been accused of causing death of people during elections, police have been accused of manhandling procession, meeting and all that. We want to make sure that all our officers are well trained,” Kisavi explained.
The National Police Service (NPS) was for instance criticized for using extreme force on Opposition supporters over the past four months leading to and after the 2017 General Elections.
Human right bodies and the now defunct National Super Alliance (NASA) cited cases such as Opposition Leader Raila Odinga’s return from the US was greeted with bullets, tear gas and water cannons as police battled NASA supporters who defied a ban to receive him at the Jomo Kenya International Airport (JKIA).
Kisavi also pointed out that incitement by politicians and misuse of technology as some of the factors that are likely to play a role on whether the country has a peaceful general election in 2022.
“Technology is a key element of insecurity during elections. If for example IEBC does not get it right this time due to technological challenges and cyber security issues we might have a lot of challenges,” he said.
He requested the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to take action on political leaders who have already launched early campaigns before the period is declared in May next year.
“Serving and providing security in a country like Kenya, where campaigns start immediately after the announcement of the general election results, you can understand how challenging it is, it brings about fatigue. We have to make sure we balance our operations within covering those campaigns and also providing security to other Kenyans,” Kivasi stated.
Speaking during the some forum, Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) Chairperson Anne Makori said that the agency has set up a call-centre and opened as it heightened its bid to monitor trends in the run-up to the elections.
“In a country where the public has a lot of trust in the politicians, anxiety has been rising by the day so anything that will happen during that time of elections can trigger violence in this country,” Kisavi said.
He added that the Service is also monitoring the social media where they have noted that there is a lot of hate speech, incitement, propaganda and fake news which is circulated by bloggers and people who have a lot of the influence in the social media sphere
Kisavi told the online forum that the Police Service is also concerned with the re-emergence of armed youth groups who have been brought together in various parts of the eastern and northern Kenya to form militias.
“Some of the insecurity you are witnessing particularly in those areas is not actually because of cattle rustling, this are people who are being funded by politicians, and they are being investigated and we hope in the short time possible, the perpetrators or the funding of this chaos will be arrested and prosecuted,” the Commissioner of Police said.
