Who will arrest the decline in image of our policemen?

 

By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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Being a police officer in East Africa has never been easy.

But when the media aims directly at you, when your constables behave in a manner that makes you want to disown them, while the public is losing faith in the force, the job of keeping law and order gets even trickier.

In Kampala, where police cause rivers of tears to flow whenever they unleash teargas on demonstrators, the public were last week treated to the sight of the force’s top commander, Maj-Gen Kale Kayihura, in tears as he begged for forgiveness from an injured musician.

Some trigger-happy constables had for some unclear reason shot popular musician Bebe Cool four times in the thighs.

A contrite Gen Kayihura was photographed pleading at Bebe Cool’s hospital bedside.

So low is the force’s image that soon after Kayihura’s visit, the Commander in Chief, President Yoweri Museveni, also came calling.

Museveni reportedly left a thick brown envelope under Bebe Cool’s pillow to take care of all his bills and other personal needs.

So fat was Museveni’s envelope that Bebe Cool didn’t dare divulge the contents for fear of “jealous” people’s reactions.

He said that Museveni had promised to send an even thicker envelope should the need arise to fly him out of the country for further treatment.

In Dar es Salaam, the police were also facing an image problem that, strangely enough, arose out of their arresting an extortion suspect.

There was this journalist who was popular for exposing bribery of traffic officers, for which he even won an award last year.

Police recently arrested him alongside two hardcore criminals on suspicion of attempting to extort Tsh10 million (about $8,500) from an interdicted public official.

The public’s reaction, to the latter’s dismay, was to blame the police, accusing them of setting the journalist up in revenge for his exposing traffic cops earlier.

The usually secretive police then went into overdrive, announcing every step of their investigation at press conferences and leaking even more interesting bits of evidence they had against the guy.

As for the Kenya police, heaven knows how they will ever fix their image of being an anti-people force.