Nairobi — Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has once again assured Azimio la Umoja One Kenya leader Raila Odinga and his supporters of security during their anti-government meetings slated for Wednesday and Jamhuri Day.
Addressing the media from Harambee House in Nairobi, Kindiki said the Ministry would not infringe on Azimio's Constitutional right to hold a peaceful assembly and to present petitions to public authorities.
Kindiki said that the Government will not interfere with the planned demonstrations by the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition but will remain alert to ensure that they don't interfere with the other Kenyans who are not part of the demos.
"We in the security sector are not interested in political discussions around the activities that are happening. We remain professional, focused but extremely firm and ruthless with lawbreakers. Those who want to test what our resolve is can try to break the law," he said.
He added that the position of the government is that they will not politicize security noting that it is a danger to the country.
The Interior CS stated that their main aim is to protect the institutions within the country to serve every Kenyan fairly and urged those planning the protests to respect the law while expressing their constitutional right to picket and express their grievances.
However, Kindiki warned that the government will deal ruthlessly with any individual who intends to take advantage of the planned peaceful protest to cause chaos in the country.
"The same way we have done with the muggers of Nairobi, the same way we are ruthlessly pursuing the bandits in the North of our country, with the bandits in the North, the same way we are engaged to ensure terrorist at bay, is the same way we will ruthlessly deal with any Kenyan who wants to use the democratic space of our constitution to interfere with the rights and freedoms of other Kenyans," Kindiki warned.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
CS Kindiki asked Odinga to provide schedules for the planned meetings so that security can be deployed to the areas.
He added that the schedule will help them plan themselves accordingly on the level of deployment of security officers required to oversee the planned meeting.
"We will however require to be given a full schedule of where those activities are, the nature of those activities and the frequency of those activities so that we can be are able to arrange ourselves to plan ourselves because we have finite human resources to deploy, and these human resources are in competition, "he said.
"The economy is competing for the number of police officers we have. We cannot deploy the entire contingent of the entire police service because of one section of society. We need to know the requirements they need so that we can balance that need with the other needs that also require our services in this sector," he added.
The Azimio la Umoja leader on Monday clarified that the opposition will use the forums to share views on the state of affairs in the country.
