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{
    "id": 1340536,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1340536/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 92,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Homa Bay Town, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Peter Kaluma",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "It is a pleasurable thing when we have teachers and students also in this House. I have served in the Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Affairs of the National Assembly for the past 10 years. In that period, I have toured all these disturbed parts of our country from North Eastern, to Ijara, to Boni Forest and all those places. I thank the Member who has brought this matter to the House by way of a Statement, for bringing it up. To lose a life is a very serious and painful matter because the first duty of any State is to protect the lives of its citizens. To lose three cannot be any less serious. I am confirming that it is not only the three. In my tour of duty in the areas being spoken about, Kenyans wake up not knowing whether they will return home alive in the evening. Kenyans bid their children goodbye in the morning, not knowing whether they will hug them again in the evening. You hear Members blaming it on the police and other services. I think the time has come for us to be much more serious. There is a very big problem with the management of security in Boni Forest and other places. Hon. Deputy Speaker, when I toured these disturbed areas, I met the police officers. The police officers who are assigned duty in these operation zones are forgotten once they go there. I met officers who were posted to these areas and have stayed there for 20, 23 up to 27 years from the time of recruitment. They are not being moved back to some other places. These police officers are not being promoted. These police officers are not being rewarded. These police officers do not have equipment. These are areas which are infested with a lot of improvised explosive devices. You can imagine a person is crying that they are under attack and you are being required as a police officer to go in ordinary vehicles to rescue them. You have seen these officers being blown up as they are going to help every time. Let us give these officers equipment. Let us facilitate them. Let us treat them as other Kenyans, and then let us bolster the security in those areas. It is very painful. When you want to know a senior police officer in Nairobi, you look at their waist line. We have police officers with over 56 to 70 inches on their waistline. They are too big in the middle than the rest of the body. They are the officers being promoted every day, wives of people, relatives of people, while other officers serving the country are rejected outside there. I want to ask that this matter returns to the House in a better form where it can be discussed in depth and serious solutions be preferred around those areas. Boni Forest is a very small place. Why do we not have enough police officers there, even if they are walking on foot, to clear the so-called al Shabab at once instead of watching as people are being butchered like goats and other animals, the way we watch every day? Police officers are idling here. Why do we not have Kenya Defence Force (KDF) officers romp this place we call Boni Forest, and within one week have our security apparatus, then we clear this area and shield it from external aggressions in the future? Strategies can be applied. I pray that the Member pursues this thing. Let us have a Motion or a form of proceedings before the House over this matter on which we can give resolutions which can be actionable. I thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker."
}