NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 12- Kenya’s state of security was on Thursday described “strong” by President Uhuru Kenyatta, despite an increasingly unstable region.
The President said the country’s security agencies had managed to thwart serious threats like terrorism…though the threat is not eliminated.
“The State of our national security is strong. Our homeland is secure from the varied threats against it,” the President said during a televised State of the Nation Address in Parliament.
He added, “The terrorists continue to be routed, arrested, and prosecuted. Their plots are detected and disrupted before they can cause serious harm to more innocent Kenyans.”
The war against crime and criminality continues apace, the President said, “driven by a National Police Service that continues to undertake technological, human resource and skills reforms to better serve Kenyans.”
But crime statistics captured in a report by the Director of Public Prosecutions paints a grim reality.
For example, between 2019 and June 2020, the DPP registered 4,088 new cases of sexual and gender-based violence.
Further, the DPP’s report details 174 registered cases of human trafficking.
“The terrorists continue to be routed, arrested, and prosecuted. Their plots are detected and disrupted before they can cause serious harm to more innocent Kenyans,” the President said.
“The war against crime and criminality continues apace, driven by a National Police Service that continues to undertake technological, human resource, and skills reforms to better serve Kenyans.”
While Kenya is largely stable, the President noted that the region was increasingly becoming unstable.
Somalia has been unstable for decades over the scourge of terrorism while Ethiopia national army is currently fighting in Northern Tigray in a conflict that analysts fear could spiral into a protracted civil war.
South Sudan is yet to heal despite many peace accords while Tanzania is just from an electioneering period that exposed its democratic status.
Uganda is headed into an election and already the government has been cracking down on the opposition, in their quest to topple the long-serving President Yoweri Museveni.
“While we celebrate the state of our national security, our region is increasingly unstable. We are witnessing the escalating conflicts being caused by ethnicised and regionalised competition for political power. As has always been the case, we are working hard to support peace and reconciliation processes where they are needed the most. We seek to export our peace and pragmatism to our region knowing that success will further secure our Nation,” the President said.
He added that “we must always remember that the wages of bad politics is the people’s suffering and ruin.”
“Many neighbouring countries need a handshake, they need a politics in which competition is not turned into enmity. They need political leaders focused on including the young and desperate not inciting them to revolt against their country and their elders.”
Kenya is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and a long-term peace negotiator in the region.
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