“I have seen debates, reactions, and expressions regarding my recent statement on the use of firearms by police officers.
My statement was made contextually and consciously with clarity of mind based on the express provisions of the law. No leader, scholar, jurist, journalist, blogger, or opinion shaper has challenged me on the law. At my age, position, and experience, I cannot utter statements that are not supported by the Constitution and the law. Throughout my career, I have never, in my conduct or utterances, found myself on the wrong side of the law.
Indeed the Sixth Schedule of the National Police Service Act, in Paragraph B(1), provides the conditions for use of firearms by the Police as follows:
- Protecting the lives of officers or civilians
- Self-defence against imminent threats of death or serious injury
- Property protection through justified force
- Preventing the escape of felony suspects from lawful custody
I ask all those who are spreading misinformation, disinformation, and fake news to challenge me on the law.
Those who are saying I issued an order to the police should show where the order is. A mere restatement of the law as it exists cannot amount to giving an order to the police.
The Police are mandated by law to operate within the constitutional framework, the statutes, and the departmental standing orders. In any case, I have no constitutional powers to give such orders; instead, I have a duty to support the police and to formulate policy recommendations to aid the application of law in the enforcement of law and order.
Our police officers who are attacked by robbers, rioters, and arsonists—who have torched police stations, stolen rifles, burnt suspects alive, and burnt property worth millions of shillings, including courts —cannot be left helpless when they have been given the authority by the Constitution and the law to defend themselves, the citizens, and their property.
The law is in black and white.”
