Major-General Ali hangs up his boots after four decades
Photo/FILE
Major-General (Rtd) Hussein Ali steps down from the corporation with the prompting of his board of directors who found his performance in the first three years of service wanting.
Mohammed Hussein Ali has finally hang up his boots. After four decades in the civil service, Major-General (rtd) Ali has bowed out of a tumultuous final phase that threatened to end his public career in disgrace.
This week, the board of the Postal Corporation of Kenya – the State corporation Mr Ali has headed since 2009 – advertised for his position. This followed a decision not to renew his contract.
Maj-Gen Ali goes down in history as the one military general whose career has been marked by high drama in public jobs he would not have thought of ever undertaking when he joined the Kenya Army as a cadet in 1977.
His was a straight shot story of a disciplined soldier, later promoted to an officer, and steadily rising through the ranks of the rather closed-up but respected Kenyan military until the call that came in April, 2004.
It had been slightly over a year since President Kibaki had taken over power under Narc and there was pressure for police reforms.
The then powerful Minister of State, Dr Chris Murungaru – he held Defence, Internal Security and Provincial Administration dockets – recommended Mr Ali, then a Kenya Army Brigadier, to take up office at Vigilance House and spearhead police reforms.
New blood
An April 5, 2004 PPS dispatch summed up the thinking at State House when the then Brig Ali was picked to replace career police officer Edwin Nyaseda at the helm:
“These changes are aimed at injecting new blood to the leadership of the police giving a new approach in the management of security in the country.”
And, thus, a career military officer had, for the first time in Kenya’s history, been figuratively thrown into the deep end – to find a solution to the perennial policing problems and shoot down the high crime levels.
The then Brig Ali, as a disciplined officer, hit the ground running. A month after appointment, he sent 57 senior officers packing in the country’s most radical shake-up of the force.
A fortnight before, he had disbanded the Kenya Police Reserve which had long been abused by wealthy, unscrupulous businessmen to purvey or protect illegal business.
Brig Ali was on a roll and Kenyans were loving his hard-nosed approach to the policing problem and the attendant levels of crime. President Kibaki was impressed by the officer he seconded to Vigilance House and, barely a year into office, Brig Ali was promoted to Major-General.
But his biggest headache was yet to come. Increasingly, the outlawed Mungiki sect was becoming a big security threat, and it was his call to deal with the menace.
Called for sacking
His method was ruthlessness and it would soon attract criticism from human rights organisations, the most stinging coming from Prof Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, who called for Maj-Gen Ali’s sacking.
But the General survived. Vigilance House and the government put up a strong defence and said Prof Alston had failed to appreciate the Kenyan context.
But the biggest test for the police chief was yet to come. After Kenyans voted in the 2007 General Election, the country sank into violence overnight.
Maj-Gen Ali’s officers were accused of responding with brute force and even committing crime in the process of quelling the violence.
Maj-Gen Ali stood his ground and said he would not have done it any differently if he had the chance to do it all over again. (READ: I’ll continue to serve, says Ali)
When he left Vigilance House on September 8, 2009, Maj-Gen Ali expressed satisfaction with his tenure. “I managed to bring crime down and I take pride in what I did,” he said.
Later he was among the six Kenyans cited by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, as bearing the greatest responsibility for the post-election violence. But ICC judges were to later rule that he had no charges to answer.
Speaking two days after the ICC judges’ decision, Maj-Gen Ali said he was elated to be cleared.
“As a civil servant, I have no regrets over the work I have done for Kenyans in any of the capacities I have worked. I am proud to have served Kenyans as the Commissioner of Police and before that … I have no regrets for the work I have done. Not at all,” he offered.
