Bodyguards hanging from a politician's vehicle in Nairobi on May 23, 2016.
When an aspiring Kenyan MP is on the campaign trail, she or he goes into all sorts of communities and areas canvassing for votes. Some of them are even known to literally walk from home to home and village to village looking for votes.
This include places known for banditry and insecurity. They have no fear of Kenyans, until they get elected. The moment that happens, they put up barriers between them and the voters. When did voters become a danger to the MPs? What have MPs got to hide?
MPs having bodyguards means their lives are in danger, but from what exactly? How can they now fear the same voters they trusted as they sought them out in areas experiencing conflict, caves and slums to seek their votes?
The standard answer I get whenever I find out from Kenyans why MPs need security, is that they fear the aspirants they beat to win the elections. If that is the case, why should it be the taxpayers’ responsibility to protect MPs from problems of their own making? If they think they stole votes from others, it is their cross to bear. With the salaries they command, MPs should be paying for their own security!
Personal financial benefit
Providing every elected MP with a bodyguard is mostly anchored on ego and financial abuse. The latter is even affecting the bodyguards as MPs pocket their allowances. Which proves that our MPs are in Parliament for personal financial benefit and not to serve the voters.
When they side with the government on every Bill, however, controversial, they are not doing so in support of the government ,but to protect their bread and butter. That is why they get caught flip-flopping on issues on the floor of the house. One minute they are in favour of Adani investing in Kenya and supporting the government for entering into such deals, and the next they castigate Adani for being lucifer’s half-brother.
Had the United States not indicted Adani with fraud, rest assured the MPs would gladly have let him to capture Kenya while they watched.
MPs flip-flopping is just them openly showing that they lack integrity. This is what has caused problems in many facets of Kenyans’ lives. Integrity lacking in Parliament, Executive and Judiciary is having a negative impact on many areas of Kenyan society. One of these is the education sector. Moi University is on its knees due to corruption. Universities are reporting finding hundreds of graduates on the graduation honours list who have never set foot in class, or even ever qualified for university. MPs being voted in with fraudulent degrees is clearly inspiring other Kenyans to seek fake degrees too.
Corruption has become the monster it is now because lack of integrity. In Office of the Director of Public Prosecution, many cases are being sabotaged or withdrawn by the very officials who should be holding thieves of public funds to account. The security docket has gone to the dogs, letting Kenyans’ human rights to be violated through arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
As I write this article, it is reported that Interpol has arrested a number of Kenyans for transnational bank fraud. Some politicians and senior government officials are allegedly implicated in the scam. That is how low we have sunk as a country. Where stealing is now more glorified and supported than honest work. Yet again, Kenyans cannot find honest work because jobs are not being created at home. What are the youth to do? Follow in the footsteps of thieving adults.
To Kenyan MPs, the worst problem in Kenya is not insecurity, but lack of integrity that is being perpetuated in the Legislature, Judiciary and Executive. MPs have the responsibility to reverse the trend by standing with the voters. Their failure to do so has now led the country to be awash with criminal acts and unsavoury elements tarnishing the image of the country through corruption and fraud.
Waste of public funds
Giving MPs bodyguards is utter waste of public funds. It is also abuse of crucial personnel that would do more for the country by focusing on keeping everyone safe, not just a select group of insular individuals such as MPs. We need our police officers to focus on policing and not running after people with inflated egos.
Integrity in Kenya has been harmed because those entrusted with preserving and protecting it have failed to do so. Giving bodyguards to individuals who lack integrity is accepting that dishonest people are preferred over honest Kenyans.
What Kenyans must protect are not MPs or anyone voted to serve the public, but integrity itself. Keeping integrity secure would eradicate the moral decline we see in Kenya and the lowering of standards in the education, health, justice and security dockets. Let us secure integrity first, not MPs.
Ms Guyo is a legal researcher, [email protected], @kdiguyo
