Saturday, June 18, 2016
Survey shows only 36 per cent of Kenyans believe the police can combat terrorism, against Niger’s 86 per cent.
Kenya police have been ranked lowly in the fight against terrorism, beating only Nigeria among the African countries facing the threat, according to a new survey.
Compared to security officers in other countries faced with similar security challenges, only 36 per cent of Kenyans said they trust the police to combat terrorism.
In Niger, 86 per cent of the citizens said they have trust in their police, in Mali (52 per cent), Uganda (56 per cent), Cameroon (49 per cent), Kenya (36 per cent) and Nigeria (21 per cent).
The continent’s average for trust in police was 51 per cent.
Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon are fighting Boko Haram, Mali, Ansar Dine militia, the Al-Qaeda faction in the Islamic Maghreb, and, Uganda, like Kenya, is battling Somali-terror group Al-Shabaab.
The score by the National Police Service is also lower than East Africa’s average of 57 per cent, said the survey by the University of Nairobi’s Institute of Development Studies and Afrobarometer, a pan-African, non-partisan research network that conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance and economic conditions.
Kenyans fear that involvement with security agencies in the war against violent extremism may compromise their safety. Details of the survey are contained in a report launched last week.
“Public trust in security forces has a profound effect on the success of security-led initiatives to combat violent extremism. It determines whether local communities, who are an important source of information and often best situated to understand the distinct dynamics of conflict in their region, are willing to work with or against security forces,” it says.
The report adds: “A lack of trust in the army or police, particularly in their ability to identify armed extremists among the general population, could incite civilian support for these violent organisations.
“Furthermore, disarmament, de-radicalisation, and reintegration programmes generally target people who were drawn into violent extremist groups through either coercion or financial incentives, rather than ideology.”
Another reason Kenyans are suspicious of the police, just like in all the other African countries, is because they deem the officers corrupt.
Almost half of survey respondents (47 per cent) in sub-Saharan Africa said that “all” or “most” police officials are involved in corruption, followed by business executives (42 per cent), government officials (38 per cent), and tax officials (37 per cent). Across all 36 surveyed countries, 45 per cent of citizens shared this view,” the report says.