Audio By Vocalize
Police recruits during rehearsal ahead of Friday’s passing-out parade at the Kenya Police College, Kiganjo Main campus in Nyeri County, August 25, 2026. [Mose Sammy, Standard]
The incessant uniform spree of the police service in Kenya introduced by every regime is simply some paint on a ‘service’ that truly serves sectarian interests. As we celebrate the Constitution at 16 years, there is no state organ that has abused the Constitution either willfully or through misuse by the powers that be. It cannot be that close two decades of having the National Police Service and the National Police Service Commission and all we want to change is the uniform.
I can place the finger on the problem, it is simply a thirst for tenders, some very deliberate effort to make someone richer. But that aside, the real issue is, the Kenyan Police have never shed the skin layer of the colonial relic in its structure, that of brutality, (in)humanity, corruption and senseless killings. Despite the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA), the police remain with one of the darkest chapters in our post 2010 constitutional dispensation era.
The evidence since 2010 is difficult to ignore. From the post-election violence investigations and the killings associated with security operations, to the documented abuses in informal settlements, counter-terrorism operations and successive demonstrations, the pattern has been remarkably consistent: Excessive force, arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. IPOA was created precisely because the old culture of police investigating police had failed. However, oversight alone has not transformed the institution.
