Kenya failures on security weaken ability to fight Shabab militants

Last week's raid on Garissa University by Al Shabab was at least the fifth massacre by Al Shabab since it stormed the upmarket Westgate shopping mall less than two years ago.

NAIROBI // Extremists carrying out attacks on Kenya are exploiting the state’s failure to overhaul its security apparatus, which analysts say leaves the country vulnerable to further strikes.

At least 147 people, most of them students, died when Al Shabab gunmen stormed the Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya on April 2.

The raid, the deadliest since Al Qaeda bombed the US embassy in the capital of Nairobi in 1998, was at least the fifth massacre by Al Shabab since it stormed the upmarket Westgate shopping mall less than two years ago.

The attacks could have been foiled had the country implemented reforms introduced five years ago to reorganise its police, intelligence and defence forces, said Ndung’u Wainaina, executive director of the Nairobi-based International Center for Policy and Conflict.

“There is a serious lack of political will to ensure there is a transformation of security in Kenya,” Mr Wainaina said. “We have a plethora of policies, a legislative framework that has been done along with a government commitment to reform, which consistently have never been implemented.”

Before the latest incident, at least 361 people died in “terrorist” attacks in Kenya since Westgate, according to a UK-based risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft.

The violence has scared off tourists who contribute more than US$1 billion (Dh3.67bn) to Kenya’s foreign-exchange earnings every year — the second-largest source after tea exports.

Changes have failed to take place even after Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta pledged to overhaul security after the Westgate attack in 2013, he said.

“Every commission of inquiry on a range of incidents and issues recommends major reforms,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The problem is these good recommendations sit on the shelf. The reforms don’t happen.”

Poor perceptions of the government’s ability to get to grips with the security challenge have been compounded by comments by government officials.

The day before the Garissa attack, Mr Kenyatta criticised travel-advisory updates by the UK and Australia warning of an increased threat in Kenya as “not genuine” and a “smear campaign”.

Compounding the current inadequacies of the security infrastructure is the pervasive corruption in security forces, said Stig Jarle Hansen, associate professor at the University of Life Sciences in Oslo and author of a book on Al Shabab in Somalia.

Kenya’s police force is among the most corrupt institutions in East Africa, according to anti-graft watchdog Transparency International.

“Corruption is a terror problem,” Mr Hansen said. “Al Shabab or other criminals can both buy passage, visas and other useful items from the police and other governmental services, making the border to Somalia highly porous, and terrorists able to avoid the police.”

* Bloomberg