We must all unite to keep our country safe

An injured woman is wheeled into a plane to be airlifted to Nairobi for treatment following the attack at Garissa University College on April 2, 2015. PHOTO | AGGREY MUTAMBO | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

In Summary

• It is doubly humiliating that the Garissa massacre came barely a day after President Uhuru Kenyatta insisted that Kenya was safe in telling off the British Government after its latest advisory against travel to the Kenyan Coast.
• The terror networks that aim to bring down this country as we know it are able to operate only because they have deeply infiltrated our society and built internal support networks. These networks must be uprooted wherever they are.
• This is the time to come together as Kenyans united against a common enemy that plots to divide us and incite us into religious conflagration. We must thus put our common identity, the glue that holds us together, our Kenyanness, above religious or other affiliations.

Yet another brazen terrorist attack on Kenya has the nation in mourning. The grief and sorrow must remind us all the extent to which we remain vulnerable and exposed to the blood-thirsty merchants of terror and destruction.

No amount of official denials and finger-pointing will obscure the fact that Al-Shabaab terrorists infiltrating from across the porous Somali border, or simply lying in wait in our midst, have the capacity to strike almost at will and wreak untold carnage.

The attack on Garissa University College shows that despite changes in the upper echelons of the security organs, we have yet to take the appropriate measures that will shield us from terrorist attacks of the magnitude of Westgate, Mpeketoni, and Mandera. Terrorists are demonstrating that they are able to strike with impunity despite all the heightened security measures.

It is doubly humiliating that the Garissa massacre came barely a day after President Uhuru Kenyatta insisted that Kenya was safe in telling off the British Government after its latest advisory against travel to the Kenyan Coast.

Hiding our heads in the sand does not stop terrorist attacks or make as more secure. We must now move with haste to seal all the loopholes in our national security machinery that leave us exposed to the evil forces that wish us harm. No effort must be spared in the action to put in place a robust security plan necessary to ensure the safety and security of all within our borders.

As Kenyans, we must unite solidly behind any campaign that is aimed at eliminating this threat once and for all. Kenya is at war, and the campaign to neutralise Al-Shabaab and similar malcontents can only be fought by a nation united with one unshakeable resolve.

INTERNAL SUPPORT NETWORKS

The terror networks that aim to bring down this country as we know it are able to operate only because they have deeply infiltrated our society and built internal support networks. These networks must be uprooted wherever they are.

All Kenyans must join hands in this noble effort, united as patriots, nationalists, and partisans who will not be distracted by sectional, religious, political, ethnic, or other divides.

This is the time to come together as Kenyans united against a common enemy that plots to divide us and incite us into religious conflagration. We must thus put our common identity, the glue that holds us together, our Kenyanness, above religious or other affiliations.

We should not forget for a moment that Al-Shabaab is part of an international terrorist network, including the IsIamic State in parts of the Middle East and Boko Haram in Nigeria, that aims to change civilisation as we know it and enforce a violent, bloodthirsty, warped, pseudo-religious doctrine that has no place in a modern state.

Kenya is thus at the frontline of a global war and terrorism and needs all the help and support it can get from the international community.

Any moves that seem intended to isolate the county because of the terrorist threat, such as the Western travel advisories, are thus a stab in the back.