The irony of sending Kenyan police officers to Haiti - Ekuru Aukot

Third Way Alliance Party Leader Ekuru Aukot has sustained his criticism of the government over the push to deploy police officers to Haiti, terming the mission ‘ironical' in the eyes of Kenyans.

Aukot who spoke during Citizen TV’s Tonight Show on Thursday insisted that the government should honour the court ruling that declared the mission unconstitutional since the deployment did not serve the purpose and reflect on the true interests of citizens.

Having sponsored the petition against the Haiti mission, he argued that Kenya as a country was in dire need of service from police officers citing the continued bandit attacks in the North and the recent surge of machette-wielding gangs such as Wakali Wao in the Coastal region.

“Today we are dealing with a lot of insecurities; as we speak, there is the return of most gangs. We hear of the machete gangs, if you are from Northern Kenya, you know it is not good. Recently I visited an area called Kawab in Samburu South and it is a war-torn location,” he said.

“We have the situation in the border of Kericho and Samburu, there is the Wakali Kwanza, Wakali Wao, 88 Batallion …We have serious insecurity problems in our own country that require the precious service of the police.”

The two-time presidential aspirant went on to fault the United Nations for approving Kenya’s request to serve in the Caribbean Nation, despite not meeting the international standards for the number of police officers in a nation.

According to Aukot, Kenya falls short of the Security Council’s requirements of police ratio to civilians since the standard ratio is 1 officer to 450 people and Kenya has a ratio of 1:1150 respectively.

“One of the things that disappoints me about the Haiti situation is that am disappointed with the UN because it actually recommends that the level of police in any country is 1:450 but in the Kenyan context, we are talking about 1:1150 Kenyans,” he explained.

He goes on to claim the United States is compelling the UN to approve Kenya’s mission saying: “The same UN that has been pushed by the US is telling Kenya, a country that has a deficit in police service, to send its police to Haiti.”

Dr Aukot referred to the court ruling that defined why Kenya could not deploy police officers to Haiti and why President William Ruto could not use his powers within the law to deploy them, reiterating that Haiti has no reciprocal agreement with Kenya as required by the constitution.

He points out that only countries with a legitimately elected government can request for police officers and since Haiti is led by a prime minister who he claimed was being downplayed by many international figures, he cannot make the request.

“Is there a reciprocal agreement between Kenya and Haiti? No, There was no. assuming there was, there ought to be a request from a legitimately elected government in Haiti. There was no such request because today Haiti, we only have a prime minister who everybody agrees was imposed into the people by the USA,” he said.

“He (Ruto) has no powers and we looked at the Haiti constitution and found out that it does not empower the prime minister to make that request.”

Consequently, the lawyer echoed the court declaration that the Kenyan police is a service and not a force and therefore the law prohibits deployment of service to other nations.

“You cannot deploy the NPS outside Kenya because the court found that it is unconstitutional it is not pursuant to Article 240 of the constitution and the judge analysed what is a service vis a vis and what is a force,” Aukot noted.

“It is a service to be enjoyed within the jurisdiction of Kenya; you cannot deploy the police service outside the jurisdiction of Kenya.”