Cases of police officers killing themselves in Kenya are no longer breaking news. We have heard several incidences where an officer rained on his wife with bullets before taking their own life.
I mean, the number of suicides in Kenya is at an all time high. But it becomes frightening when someone tasked with protecting lives cannot even protect himself.
The cases have become so rampant that they have caught the attention of their boss Fred Matiang’i. According to Matiang’i, the high suicide cases could be attributed to frustrations by their seniors.
He has warned senior police commanders to shun away from instilling fear into their juniors and instead offer leadership.
“Service is about interacting with people you are working with, it is not about bossing people around. We must walk away from that habit,” the CS directed.
Matiangi was speaking at the Police Training College in Loresho, Nairobi, where he addressed senior police commanders attending a leadership course.
He also directed police commanders to interact well with their juniors as part of measures to end suicide cases.
He urged them to walk from the comfort of their offices and start going to police stations where other than interacting with the community, they should extend the same to their juniors.
“We need to develop a solid strong mentorship programme within our services. That way, then we will have police officers who are confident, who are ready to serve and who we are ready to help. Let us know these people. Some of these could be going through ordinary challenges in life like disagreeing with their girlfriend and for a young person, they would think the world is over,” the CS said.
“We need to tell them not to worry. Tell them, she might change her mind but in the event she doesn’t, we will pray with you and hope you will get another one. So that they stop committing suicide.”