Use of threats no way to govern

SIM Card listing

Subscribers queue and near a Safaricom van to register their SIM cards in Elburgon town in Nakuru County, on April 8, 2022.

Photo credit: John Njoroge | Nation Media Group

 Kenya is becoming ‘no country for citizens’. Just like in the film No Country for Old Men, Kenyans are caught between the rock (corruption) and deep blue sea (uncaring institutions). While the film is characterised by violence reminiscent of the narco world and the suspicions therein, Kenya is equally becoming threatening, sad and hopeless for the citizens. We were even ranked as unhappy!

I have never known a time when the citizens just ‘chilled’ and went about their businesses without encountering some form of harassment from government officials. Kenyans are always caught in a vortex of anxiety brought unto them mostly by ‘officers-in-charge’. Anybody with a name tag, a title and an office or gun now thinks he or she has the power to make laws.

Delegated powers are not to be used to abuse the citizens or add extra power to oneself. Acting ultra vires is what seems to be happening in many of our government departments and parastatals, to the citizens’ inconvenience. Threatening rules are coming our way thick and fast from people who should not be making laws. And some of those rules sound fishy.

Distress

A bona fide exercise should have been thought through very well and provisions put in place so that the citizens can take part in it without much distress. There is mania in government to get us all to jump whenever some official thought of a ‘grand plan’ that really reads like a chapter out of the corruption playbook. The agencies in question act like con artists by unnecessarily using threats and intimidation to instil fear in the citizens (read victims).

Over the past few years, we were sent on a panic mode to replace our passports with the modern biometric ones. The public thronged the few Immigration offices for days on end to carry out the exercise that ought to have been spread out between centres to achieve quicker results and reach the target of the initial months.

That was followed by Huduma Namba, when we were—again—threatened with hell fire if we did not get one. Sadly, after all the heartache, loss of funds and anxiety, the court declared it pretty much illegal!

Now we are being asked to re-register our SIM cards afresh. Last Friday’s deadline was extended—at the last minute—by six months, but not before causing chaos as subscribers made a dash for the telcos. The reason is to tackle ‘cybercrime and digital fraud’. Though valid, it is not enough reason to inconvenience the entire country.

Something fishy

Many Kenyans, including me, used the national ID card to acquire our phone lines; essentially, ‘No ID, no SIM card’. So, the telcos have the data of bona fide subscribers and can, using the technology at their disposal, easily track the cybercriminals.

Kenya is neither the first nor the last country to suffer cybercrime. The world will need to be shut for the police to pursue every cybercriminal the Kenyan way. Again, I smell something fishy and wonder, like many of my fellow Kenyans, whether this is an exercise linked with data harvesting as we go into a general election.

Every requirement dropped on the public to be executed within a short timeframe only creates ‘eating’ opportunities for officials. There are many ways for the government to initiate a policy without threatening or inconveniencing anyone. The SIM card re-registration decree fails to take cognisance of the strata of citizens. Not all Kenyans work in an office or live in a house. Many in the diaspora still use their Kenyan phone numbers to reach their loved ones. And there are those who frequently travel.

Then you have nomads and pastoralists, who use their phones as a lifeline in the wild. Not forgetting the millions of rural Kenyans who do not have bank accounts but rely on their phones to manage their mobile money wallets. Did all these people deserve to live without their phones, just to pay for the sins of a handful of criminals?

The government should not blame the citizens for their incompetence of failing to deal with crime. Switching off innocent people’s phones is overzealous, cruel, illegal and a breach of rights. Our phones have become our extra ID and link to society.

Asking people to stand in long queues before the Covid-19 pandemic has even ended is sending them to an early grave. Before officials issue another threat, it would be better to seek the best and most calming scenarios that would spur compliance. Crucially, there must be valid acceptable reasons to change things. It is also time to regulate delegated powers so that officials do not get carried away and abuse them.

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With the increased poverty due to hard economic times and now drought, many will turn to stealing food to survive. It should not be a crime to steal food to save your life or that of your loved ones.

The jailing of Alvin Linus Chivondo for stealing food from a supermarket to feed his family is gross injustice. Where would a man who, for lack of money, ends up stealing food find the money to pay a court fine? People like him need food rations, not punishment. In the same token, relief food should be going to the urban poor as well.

Ms Guyo is a legal researcher. [email protected]. @Kdiguyo