ODM Party Leader Raila Odinga on Thursday released a statement raising concerns on the state of insecurity in Kenya following reports of increased incidences of crime in the country.

Below is the full statement issued by Raila on November 10, 2022:

The incident last Friday in which essentially criminal gangs with apparent political connections operating as auctioneers raided and demolished the home of an innocent family in Nairobi’s Westlands area should worry both ordinary Kenyans and the government.

We may be witnessing a quick return of the old practice where individuals with political patronage use their proximity to power to harass innocent citizens and foreigners and take their property.

A general sense of lawlessness is taking shape. Our security appears to have deteriorated overnight, with widespread incidents of daylight crimes, making families lose their loved ones to thugs in broad daylight, particularly in Nairobi.

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Lawlessness and impunity seem to be finding their way back into our national life, targeting not just individuals but also property in a manner witnessed in a previous era that Kenyans had hoped was gone forever.

The developments come at a time the government is profiling the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and dividing the National Police Service into good and bad officers.

The Westlands incident, taken together with recent developments in which the Director of Public Prosecutions has moved fast to drop cases against government officials and the willingness of the Judiciary to dance to the tunes of the Executive, point to the fact that as a country, we are flirting with lawlessness.

This is the easiest way to lose a country to criminals. Soon, the criminals will be reaching deeper into the country, getting bolder and terrorizing communities and even security officers.

While public outcry seems to have forced the government to take up the matter of the so-called auctioneers in the Westlands saga, there is need for actions that will affirm that political patronage shall not be a substitute for the rule of law in Kenya.

For a start, the gang that descended on the Westlands home must be made to pay by reconstructing the house and compensating the owner for the damages and the inconvenience.

In the meantime, the country deserves a firm commitment by the government that the era in which people with political patronage terrorized innocent Kenyans and foreigners in our midst is gone and shall never return.