The Independent Policing Oversight Authority(IPOA) Commissioner John Waiganjo has refuted claims by Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi on extra-judicial killings in Kenya.
Speaking during an interview on Friday, April 26, Waiganjo noted that various Cabinet Secretaries in the past had been heard claiming there were no more killings related to police brutality in the country.
Terming it shameful, the commissioner urged stakeholders to avoid dragging politics into such critical matters.
Waiganjo further condemned acts from politicians firing at officers and commanding stations in public rallies, noting that it was wrong.
“I want us to remove politics from what we are talking about here because we have heard statements made by Cabinet Secretaries transferring officers’ commanding stations in a public rally. We don’t take that seriously ourselves,” Waiganjo noted.
“We are ashamed that Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi stated that there are no extrajudicial killings in Kenya.”
The commissioner further highlighted IPOA’s professionalism, distancing it from practices displayed by politicians and other leaders in public.
“We cannot take what politicians say to be the truth, and of course we condemn it,” he added.
During the 44th Ordinary Session of the African Union Executive Council of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Mudavadi noted that police brutality was no longer a significant concern in Kenya.
In response to a statement by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Foreign Affairs CS referenced IPOA, affirming that the Kenyan police force is effectively guided and regulated by the authority.
“This body investigates such impunity if any and holds individual police officers accountable, including through prosecution,” Mudavadi stated.
His utterances came after the United States Congress opposed the move by their government to support a Kenya-led multinational security mission to Haiti. The Congress pointed out the force's past involving cases of police brutality.
