Lead image for Stop using the police to muzzle political dissent.
The only people who made the protests unsafe were the police. The Nairobi Business Community members were protecting their businesses from people who had been sponsored to infiltrate the protests and even those people were dealt with by the protesters. They came to the Central Business District (CBD) by motorcycles, and their messages endorsed support for the government. We could clearly tell them from the rest of the protesters. The protesters confronted them and defeated them. They went back home. It was dangerous for them to remain within the precincts of the CBD because the protesters were too many. We always knew where the attacks could be coming from (the police). Kenyans were united in these protests. We did not clash at any time with the business community. We understood why they were doing what they had to do. They understood why we were doing what we had to do. - Wanjiru Wanjiru, Activist on the June 2024 protests (Missing Voices, 2024).
Kenya’s recurring State-sponsored electoral violence is rooted not in rogue officers but in a political system that uses policing to preserve power. Researcher Kamau Wairuri calls this the “politics of policing” — police violence used to preserve power.
Successive regimes have exploited this architecture. Daniel arap Moi used force against opponents of one-party rule; Mwai Kibaki’s misuse of the Administration Police contributed to the 2007 post-election violence; Uhuru Kenyatta expanded military-grade policing under counter-terrorism, later deployed against protesters and opponents. William Ruto’s administration has intensified the securitised model. The regimes change, but the coercive architecture remains.
The 2023 Maraga Taskforce found a police service weakened by underfunding, corruption, poor leadership, politicised human-resource management and structural dysfunction, undermining impartial policing during contested periods.
Legal changes and political practice have eroded the Inspector-General’s independence. Despite a four-year term, executive pressure has contributed to early departures, while parliamentary oversight has failed to check presidential influence.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations is equally vulnerable. Its limited autonomy over staffing and budgets exposes it to executive pressure and has enabled its weaponisation against political opponents, protesters and critics.
Suspected rogue units
The National Police Service Commission was created to safeguard merit and accountability in recruitment, promotion, transfers and discipline. Yet the Maraga Taskforce found it so compromised that it recommended a total overhaul. Corruption, patronage and nepotism require reform of the entire accountability system — the Inspector-General, DCI, Commission and National Intelligence Service.