Government Calls for Cooperation to Combat Terror
By Edwin Maina
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
The government has called for the cooperation of political leaders and citizens so as to root out terrorism activities the North Eastern and Coast regions along the Kenya-Somalia borderline.
Interior principal secretary Raymond Omollo, while addressing journalists at a Malindi hotel on September 28, 2023, said the government has adopted a multi-agency approach in dealing with the terror insurgents.
In his view, this approach was bearing fruit, but required the contributions of all actors within and without the government to eliminate the threat and vice bedevilling the porous border.
“Collaboration of all players in and out of the government will go a long way in stopping terror attacks against Kenyans,” he said.
The PS called on elected leaders from both the North-Eastern and Coast regions to work with the government saying without involving their grassroots supporters wananchi the war against terrorism would be difficult to surmount along the borderline.
He was speaking after giving a keynote address during a meeting of the technical team on police reforms that included officials from the National Police Service Commission, the Ministry of Interior Headquarters, the Independent Police Oversight Authority, and other partners facilitating the process.
The team, according to him, was looking into the welfare of police officers and equipping different sections of the policeforce.
He explained the strategies to involve leaders and wananchi was not only to engage community, but also to strengthen community policing noting the locals bore the brunt of terror attacks in the two regions.
“Locals are the ones who suffer brunt of such attacks, yet they are the ones who know those living among them or what business they do or who incite members of the public for terror attacks. It will be therefore, easy to tackle terrorism if we work together.”
The meeting comes on the backdrop of Rtd Chief Justice David Maraga’s Taskforce on Police Reforms preparing to hand over its report to the President probably next week.
“We expect that that taskforce will be submitting its recommendations in a report next week to the President. From those recommendations, we expect to extract the specific action points based on the implementation matrix which will go a long way in ensuring that the issues of the police are properly addressed.”
On the Shakahola tragedy, the PSO urged relatives of victims to be patient and allow security agencies to complete their investigations saying within the next one or two months they would complete investigations.
“We are therefore calling for patience because we believe in the next few weeks, we will have completed the investigations and we shall have enough evidence to charge the suspects.”
