Once again, Kenyans are preparing to receive the bodies and burry victims of insecurity. Early today, bandits attacked a Nairobi bound bus from Mandera, killing 28 people, among them four police officers. The country is preparing to fly the bodies of the victims to Nairobi about three weeks after 21 bodies were flown in from Turkana and Pokot to Nairobi, all victims of the ever deteriorating security situation in our country. We condole with the families and friends of the victims. We mourn the death of security officers killed in the line of duty today and almost on a daily basis. We condemn in very strong terms this growing taste for taking lives of innocent citizens of Kenya who are going about the daily routine of earning a living for themselves and their families and building their country. And we wish quick recovery to all the injured survivors of this latest attack. We hope and demand that the government foots the bill for the injured and the dead. At the risk of being dismissed, and I know we shall be, we once again wish to remind the Jubilee Administration that it is failing our people and our country in a major way. We remind Jubilee that it is dragging our resilient nation into the ditch and we shall neither forgive nor forget. We shall never accept this and move on. When can we expect an end to this desperate state of affairs? Where is the bottom? We ask the government to give us answers. For this cannot go on forever. We continue to praise the people of Kenya for their resilience. And we continue to urge our people to remain resilient and never to give up. But we also appreciate that Kenyans are being pushed beyond human limits. People can only do so much under so much insecurity and lawlessness. We therefore appeal strongly to the Jubilee Administration to appreciate that insecurity is driving a wedge and planting suspicions between our otherwise peace loving people. Insecurity is breaking the spirits of patriotic and hard working Kenyans and causing palpable tension across the land. Life has never been this uncertain in Kenya since independence fifty years ago. We shudder at the growing possibility and indications that this may continue well into the forceable future. Attacks are growing in intensity and shifting from specific targets to public domain, increasing the death doll. Kenyans no longer feel safe in cities and towns. There is no guarantee anymore to people’s lives when they go out. Parents cannot remain at peace when children are out. People are scared to venture out now that terror and crime have in urban centres. The situation is not any better in rural areas where life has always been based on trust, distant and close relations and welcoming of strangers and visitors with open arms and open hearts. Attacks are taking place in virtually all parts of the country any time, any day, anywhere. They began in Bungoma in the first weeks of the Jubilee Administration, spread to Mt Elgon and Teso, to Kisumu, and Garissa and Wajir, to Mombasa, Lamu and Tana River and to Nairobi, the seat of National Government and National Security. Mombasa, Lamu and Malindi, our top tourism destinations are shutting down due to insecurity and security operations executed incompetently and in a partisan way. Kenyans simply don’t know where the next attacks will occur; neither do security and intelligence agencies. After every attack, no single strong action is taken to resurrect people’s confidence. Only warnings flow, then the military are sent to the scene. Each security failure is being used to move Kenya from being a longed for democracy into a military state. The attack on Westgate was turned from being an internal security police operation into a military misadventure. To date, there are no answers on who did what here. We have accepted that the investigations the president promised will not take place and we shall never know why. The same has been the case in Mpeketoni. The military moved in and turned life upside down for the people of Lamu. The people of Bungoma are waiting to know who attacked them and why in the first months of this administration. The people of the former North Eastern Province have accepted that insecurity, manifested in bombs; grenade and gun attacks are part and parcel of their lives. With each attack, victims of State failure become suspects and victims of ruthless soldiers while the leadership that is supposed to take responsibility get promotions in Nairobi. This state of affairs is neither acceptable nor sustainable. RAILA ODINGA NOVEMBER 22, 2014.
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