{UAH} Allan/Pojim/WBK: GAITHO: Perhaps we need to borrow the ‘Chinese solution’ to fight graft - Daily Nation

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GAITHO: Perhaps we need to borrow the 'Chinese solution' to fight graft

By MACHARIA GAITHO
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The Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet seemed to be moving with rare speed and resolve when he ordered the arrest of rogue bank bosses last Friday in the wake of Chase Bank going belly-up.

Mr Boinnet, in the same statement, revealed that a Mr David Mukunzi had already been arrested for allegedly spreading falsehoods on social media about the state of the banking sector.

And that is where we all see that Kenya is a country of the rich, for the rich, by the rich. Some hapless fellow is promptly arrested for probably foolish posts on Facebook and Twitter, but the real criminals are given the luxury of reporting to the police at their own convenience.

The big crooks are not arrested. They drive into the police station in their luxury limousines — the proceeds of crime — accompanied by their high-flying lawyers, who are paid from the proceeds of crime. 
Instead of being interrogated and generally subjected to the third degree like criminal suspects, they are sent off with smart salutes to the comfort of their extravagant mansions. Also proceeds of crime.

Now, if the police were serious, they would simply have arrested instead of forewarning them.

Simultaneously, the authorities would have moved to secure court orders freezing bank accounts and seizing all the known properties, including cars, houses, farms, land, stocks and shares, and any other assets that under the law would be treated as proceeds of crime.

These fellows should have been rudely roused from their comfortable beds at the crack of dawn and driven straight to lock-up in the same dirty and filthy police cells as rapists, murderers, and terrorists.

But, of course, that will not happen because white-collar criminals are invariably in league with the leadership classes.

The crisis we are seeing in the banking sector now is the direct result of an irredeemably corrupt state, what Chief Justice Willy Mutunga analysed as a "Bandit Economy".

Maybe what has happened to Dubai, Imperial, and Chase banks in the course of a few months will rouse the citizens, irrespective of party affiliation, to demand action.

Those who winked at or minimised the effects of corruption because they support the Jubilee administration have now been directly hit in their own pockets.

Too many of us have paid scant attention to the evil of corruption because we think it is government money being stolen, forgetting that the government does not have a cent of its own but is only a caretaker for our money.

Now I can see the anger. Many commenting on social media are joining me in backing the "Chinese solution" for the lords of graft.

Yes, let us have the death sentence for high-level corruption, which can be equated to economic sabotage at par with treason.

And let us make an example of the culprits by lining them up at Uhuru Park for public execution. Maybe that is what will shock Kenyans into realisation that crime does not pay.

I was sick to the stomach watching that Al-Shabaab propaganda video of the January 15 attack that annihilated a Kenyan military camp in Somalia.

Even if it is admittedly the terrorist group's spin, the video revealed a massacre that calls the lie to the Kenya's official account of the El-Adde camp disaster.

We know we are in trouble when the enemy propaganda becomes more believable than our own government's clumsy and thoroughly incompetent approach to news management.

From El-Adde back to Garissa, Wajir, and Mpeketoni, slick video accounts are now becoming a hallmark of Al-Shabaab attacks, making one wonder whether the terrorist group enjoys expert production back-up from some of those Middle East television channels.

Back to the point. That video made me sick. I felt humiliated, violated, and very, very angry.

But far from the video achieving its objectives, it actually served to fortify my belief that we must intensify the fight against terrorism rather than cower in submission.

With every setback we have had growing clamour — from the opposition, civil society, ordinary citizens, and even elements within the ruling coalition — for the withdrawal of Kenyan troops from Somalia.

Withdrawal because Al-Shabaab demands so would be abject retreat and surrender. Pulling our troops out of Somalia would not satisfy their bloodlust. It would not mean an end to attacks on Kenyan soil. It would simply be a humiliating defeat for us and a major victory for the terrorists, who would be even more emboldened to escalate their evil activities within our borders.

The narration in the video makes clear that Al-Shabaab is not just fighting to kick Kenya and the rest of the African Union Mission in Somalia forces out of the broken country.

Its ultimate objective is to spread by force of terror a warped, violent, extremist theology. This campaign poses an existentialist threat to Kenya and all the countries in the region and beyond to West Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian sub-continent, where Al-Shabaab allies in the Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and other such groups are to be found.

This virulent campaign knows no boundaries and is ready and able to spread its terror and bloodshed across the rest of the world to Europe, Asia, the Far East, and the Americas.

This is not an enemy that we can surrender to, negotiate with, or otherwise seek to appease.

After all they clearly do not see the rest of us as fellow human beings, thus the constant references in the video to "kafiri" who must be slaughtered.

We cannot surrender in the face of such threats. Instead we must fortify our defences while going out even more aggressively to hit and destroy the terrorists in their lairs and dens wherever they may be.

Locally, we must move with speed and resolve to mercilessly neutralise the individuals and institutions that recruit, indoctrinate, and brainwash impressionable young men and train, arm, and prepare them for terrorist activities.

We must move to combat at source the ideology of radicalisation that is capturing so many young people and guide potential recruits out of hopelessness to the promise of a more rewarding, peaceful existence.

Let us not forget that Kenya is at war and that there can be no room for half measures or divided loyalties. We are at the frontline of a global campaign to resist the spread of violent religious extremism and cannot shirk our responsibilities. All we ask us is that the international community give us all the help we need to more effectively confront and contain this monster that threatens to consume us all.

And of course corrupt elements in our midst who help the terrorist cause by providing safe haven, issuing passports and identity cards to foreigners, moving money, looking the other way as our borders are breached, and degrading the security response through theft at procurement must be treated as the traitors they are.

gaithomail@gmail.com. Twitter: @MachariaGaitho

GAITHO: Perhaps we need to borrow the 'Chinese solution' to fight graft - Daily Nation

http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Chinese-solution/-/440808/3155148/-/9r4nck/-/index.html

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