How to Manufacture “Monsters” in Uniform — A Kenyan Police Recruitment Manual
Fellow Kenyans, gather round and marvel at one of our finest national rituals — the hallowed, almost sacred, theatre of security: police recruitment. Every year, our stadiums transform into coliseums of potential brutality, where sweat and sinew are the currency of patriotism. Here, it’s not about protecting the law — it’s about passing the Biceps and Brutality Olympics.
Your moral compass? Irrelevant. Critical thinking? A luxury. Empathy? A weakness. Welcome to the Kenyan Police Recruitment Manual: a step-by-step guide on how to take a perfectly ordinary human being and remould them into a walking, baton-wielding trauma dispenser.
Chapter One: Be Tall, Dark, and Intimidating
Forget moral character or civic knowledge. If you’re not tall enough to dunk a basketball or dark enough to blend with shadows at dusk, you’re already a threat to national security. Apparently, justice wears size 12 boots and has to look like an ex-bouncer.
Chapter Two: Run Like You’re Chasing Your Future (Because You Are)
It’s a 5-kilometre dash to destiny. Why? Because nothing says intellectual rigor like sprinting past a mango tree. Who cares if you can’t write a coherent statement or spell “Constitution”? As long as you can chase after a suspect in slippers, you’re good to go.
Meanwhile, real crimes — bank fraud, cybercrime, corruption — are sitting smugly behind firewalls, untouched and undisturbed. But who cares about WiFi when you have a whistle?
Chapter Three: Let Me See Your Teeth
Dental structure, surprisingly, is a core competence. If your molars are intact and your canines can crack a sugarcane, you’re halfway to wearing the blue uniform. It’s unclear whether the purpose is to chew justice or smile for the cameras during PR day when children are allowed to shake hands with their future nightmares.
Chapter Four: Scars, Trauma and the Bootcamp Mentality
Scars? A bonus. The more trauma you’ve buried, the better. In fact, no psychological evaluation is done, because if you haven’t healed, why not go and help hurt others? We’re not breeding peacekeepers; we’re drafting future gladiators. You’re not trained to serve and protect; you’re taught to subdue and punish. And heaven forbid you show kindness. You’ll be dismissed for “lack of aggression.”
And Then They Unleashed Them…
What happens when you deploy barely literate, trauma-laden, emotionally vacant individuals with absolute power? You get teargas at vigils, rubber bullets on peaceful protesters, and deaths in cells called “accidents.”
Case in Point #1: Baby Pendo — Kisumu, 2017
Six-month-old Samantha Pendo was killed by police officers during a raid in Nyalenda during post-election protests. Her only crime? Being in her mother’s arms when boots and batons rained down. No one has been held accountable to this day. Or was someone arraigned and rubbered with a fake bullet until death did him part with breath, I don’t know much, I only remember these things when I am under influence of Ketepa breweries 🍻
Case in Point #2: Kianjokoma Brothers — 2021
Emmanuel and Benson Ndwiga were found dead after being arrested for “violating curfew.” Police claimed they jumped out of a moving vehicle. An autopsy showed blunt force trauma. This was not policing. This was murder. And in their play Horror in the storm by Bonface Otieno and Diana M Mutono, in the characters of Kioko and Kihika, the scene in brought to life on stage but mimicry of dead people is not a good ritual, maybe someone should give me 2 million so that Ojwang’s soul may rest in peace. I blame idleness for remembering these heartless memories.
Case in Point #3: The Gen Zs vs. the Regime — 2024
Armed with nothing but placards, smartphones, and TikTok, young Kenyans took to the streets to protest tax injustices. Their reward? Boots, bullets, abductions, and midnight deaths. The message was loud and clear: “Know your place. And it’s beneath our boots.” I am a rag, and for the love of dust, I have seen dust of graves and wonder. Gen Zs should respect uniform. I love their courage and how some prying political demigods hook and sinker their noble uprising into opportunities for looting and hooting before sacred cameras. May Jehovah wash my face.
Case in Point #4: Extrajudicial Killings by Rogue Units (SSU, Flying Squad, Kwekwe Squad)
How many young men in Kayole, Dandora, and Mathare were “mistakenly” shot for being suspected criminals? Innocent lives gunned down without trial, then branded “gangsters” posthumously. I shudder to think that people could be ruthless. I am writing these things only out of frustrations and agony that heart heart bears for the victims of war, someday, a noble man will see that Kenya is mad and needs rehabilitation.
We Need Cops Who Can Think — Not Just Threaten
Here’s a thought — maybe, just maybe, a police officer should be more than a walking set of abs. Maybe they should have:
1. Empathy Training
Understanding the communities they serve. Knowing that not everyone on the street is a criminal, that youth are not the enemy, and that someone crying for help isn’t “wasting police time.”
2. Basic Legal Knowledge
Is it too much to ask that police officers be able to differentiate between an arrest and a kidnapping? To understand reasonable force, human rights, due process, and the right to legal representation? If an officer cannot spell “Constitution,” they should not be enforcing it.
3. De-escalation Skills
Violence should be the last resort, not the first impulse. Talk first. Negotiate. Resolve. Not every disagreement needs a baton.
Community Policing, Not Combat Missions
Civilians are not insurgents. The streets are not war zones. Community policing works — where the police and public cooperate, share information, and resolve conflicts together. When officers are seen as allies, not executioners, crime drops and trust rises.
Recruit for Character, Not Calories
We’ve been selecting officers like we’re assembling a wrestling team. But brute force isn’t courage. Rage isn’t justice. Muscles don’t build morality. What we need are individuals with:
Emotional intelligence
Respect for rights
A sense of duty beyond domination
Let’s stop hiring trauma machines and start recruiting peace builders.
Because This Is What’s at Stake:
Parents struggling to educate a child only to receive a 2 a.m. call — not from the university dean, but from a morgue attendant. A child, arrested for protesting peacefully, found dead in a dingy police cell. “He hit his head on the wall,” they say. No CCTV. No witnesses. No shame.
For the enigma Kenya, we must decide: Do we want officers who serve the people or soldiers who silence them? Because when you recruit for war, you declare war on your own citizens. When you train monsters, you breed mayhem.
“This message has NOT been approved by the National Police Service.
Which is exactly why you should believe every word.”
