President William Ruto inspects a guard of honour during the 88th National Youth Service (NYS) recruits pass-out parade on August 26, 2024.
President William Ruto has announced plans to have the National Youth Service (NYS) curriculum be revised to include introduction to handling firearms, and other training modules that would make NYS recruits leave the carrying of sticks to goons sent to disperse anti-government protests.
While making this announcement at an NYS pass out parade this week, Dr Ruto explained that these gun-handling skills would go a long way in readying the NYS officers in their new quest to be a standby force, and protection of the country whenever need arise.
Although he did not reveal what the NYS would protect the country from that other security agencies had been unable to, and who had asked for this specific help, health experts have already began speculating that it might have something to do with the Mpox viral outbreak.
The last time Kenya had a health emergency of concerning proportions was in 2020 during the globally scaring coronavirus pandemic. The then government, which Dr Ruto served as Deputy President, had instituted a raft of revolutionary measures to beat the viral outbreak.
These interventions included, but not limited to; locking down the 13 corners of the country to shield the virus from storming in unannounced, cessation of human and animal movement within the borders with a view of stopping the virus from mingling with humans in public.
By far, the most effective containment measure was the deployment of underpaid and overworked police and other menacing security agencies on the streets to exorcise the Covid-19 virus out of the bodies of those affected by it.
It is against this backdrop that health experts applaud Dr Ruto in his desire to station a standby force for any other health emergency that thinks Kenyans may have relaxed in its defense of outside aggressors.
We hope this latest directive to arm NYS graduates with live bullets would go a long way in petrifying the Mpox virus from converting Kenya into a host community.
The equipping of the NYS officers with gun-handling skills has another crucial dimension that has got security experts rubbing their hands with glee.
The Kenya Police – who has been our default go-to force whenever the Ministry of Interior needs to justify why they need teargas canisters in their annual budget – has lately been busy taking up cross-border mandates preaching the gospel of the Lord to ragtag gangs in faraway lands as Haiti.
With the shifting of security roles and the police graduating to take up expatriate jobs abroad, a window of opportunity has availed itself for the NYS to also have a firsthand experience on how it feels for a teargas canister to blow up in your hands while dispersing peaceful protestors who are armed with nothing but a desire for their lives not to be run by those who saw a blackboard at a carpentry workshop only.
When the Kenya Kwanza crusaders told us that freedom had come, little did we know that the NYS would see it first as the real Mama Mboga and Boda Boda wait for 2027 to greet IEBC and ask them to explain in diagrams why they did not conduct sufficient civic education prior to the 2022 elections.
The equipping of NYS officers with gun-handling skills is a welcome move, especially at a time when the country is grappling with rapid changes in climatic conditions that has seen the Kenya Meteorological Department clash with the presidency on who we should rely on for accurate weather prediction, leaving farmers with no other option but to consult witchdoctors who not only come cheap but also with an added advantage of having direct access to the spiritual realm.
Since we need all hands on deck, the President directed Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi to consult with Defence CS Soipan Tuya and Interior Ministry’s Kithure Kindiki to ensure paramilitary training for NYS recruits to include practical courses in firearms.
Dr Ruto noted that at least 56 per cent of ex-NYS men and women have been absorbed in service disciplines, including the National Police Service, Kenya Defence Forces, Kenya Forest Service and Kenya Wildlife Service.
With the new order to complement the training manual with gun-handling, there will be no need for the remaining 44 percent of the NYS service men and service women to wait for absorption into the thinly spread disciplined services, as they could now be employed as private security guards, close protection unit of politicians, auctioneers’ repo squads, and even qualify to start moving around in unmarked Subaru cars wearing balaclavas kidnapping any innocent Kenyan with a voice.
This new directive not only heralds the beginning of the militarization of the NYS but it also removes the civilian face of the service and coverts them to a force that the 2010 Constitution fought hard to wean our security services from.
We would have treated this latest directive as another roadside declaration had the consequences not have been grave to comprehend, especially coming from the aftermath of the Gen Z protests that saw civil servants with guns terrorize peaceful protestors for sport.
No Kenyan would wish their government to fail, because five years is a long time to wait to change things at the ballot.
Equally, no Kenyan would wish to see their government make hurtful comments of the painful experiences their loved ones have gone through in the hands of state agencies who have little regard for the sanctity of life as demanded of them in the Mother Law.
It is our only prayer that sense prevails and the government climbs down from this pathological habit of shooting first and aiming later – in the formulation of public policy.
If public participation was to be a key pillar of good governance, this new directive should have been screened through the Kenyan public before finding itself on the cabinet table for consideration. Let’s not give Gen Z another reason not to believe the things they hear from the mouths of those entrusted with the lives of Kenyans.
