YVONNE'S TAKE: How many reforms does it take?

We have poured billions into police reform. Rewritten laws. Convened taskforces. Set up commissions. Launched community policing. Modernised equipment. Raised salaries. Upgraded training. Built new command structures. And still, more than 20 years into this national effort, the result is the same: brutality, impunity, and unaccountable power- wrapped in uniform.

Ten days ago, blogger Albert Ojwang died in police custody. The initial claim? That he fatally injured himself by repeatedly banging his head against a wall — an explanation so absurd it was swiftly walked back. The Inspector General of Police later apologised for the statement. But not for the death. Not for the glaring contradictions. Not for the failure of the institution he leads.

Just days after that, an innocent bystander was shot in the head during public protests. Yet another, was shot in the neck. And we remember all too well what happened during last year’s Gen Z-led demonstrations - young people abducted in the dead of night, disappeared without charge, some brutalised, others silenced, ironically being released from police custody when they had all along denied their involvement. Their only crime: daring to dissent.

What does this say about the state of reform?

Because reform, after all, is not about paper. It is about people. It is not about the length of the report or the cost of the project. It is about what happens in that critical moment, when a citizen encounters a police officer in a street, at a rally, or in a cell. And if that moment still ends in fear or death, then the reform has failed.

We have a long and exhausting history of trying.

In 2004, the Kibaki administration launched the first major effort with the National Task Force on Police Reform. Its report, released in 2005, proposed a five-year overhaul at a cost of Ksh.61 billion. Most of it was never implemented.

In 2009, following the post-election violence, the Ransley Task Force was appointed. It recommended a complete reorganisation of the police command structure, the establishment of clear oversight bodies, and a pivot to community-based policing.

The 2010 Constitution enshrined many of these ideas in law, establishing the Independent Policing Oversight Authority and the National Police Service Commission. There was hope. But the institutions were underfunded and politically undermined almost from the start.

Subsequent efforts were funded by both the government and international partners. The Police Reform Implementation Committee, for example, had a Ksh.61.7 billion plan, but with a Ksh.16 billion funding shortfall. More blueprints. More gaps.

Then came the latest: the taskforce led by former Chief Justice David Maraga, appointed in late 2022. It issued 598 recommendations, of which more than half were deemed actionable without legislation. The price tag? Over Ksh.106 billion. Some 51% of the recommendations, we are told, have been implemented. But if we’re still losing lives in custody and on the streets, what exactly are we measuring?

The recommendations across all these efforts are eerily similar: better pay and welfare, better training, better housing, more accountability, stronger oversight, a focus on service rather than force. We have said the same things. Over and over. For years.

Even the political language has been recycled.

In his 2022 campaign and shortly after taking office, President William Ruto promised a new era, one where the police and DCI would no longer be used to settle political scores. He said Kenyans should be free to talk to each other without fear, even mocking the fact that people had resorted to WhatsApp calls to avoid surveillance. He vowed to restore our democratic space.

And yet, here we are.

The question is: do we mean it this time? Will we act? Or will we spend yet another decade making the same recommendations, allocating the same billions, and watching more lives stolen without justice?

Because if the only consistent outcome of all these reforms is more reports, more funding, and more funerals, then what we are running is not a reform programme. It’s a performance.

And performances don’t save lives.