As Kenya marked the 3rd Anniversary of the El Adde terrorist attack in Somalia on 15/01/2016 where hundreds of Kenya Defence Forces soldiers were massacred, Al Shabaab terrorists added insult to injury by striking at the heart of Kenya’s capital city with a deadly terrorist massacre claiming dozens of innocent Kenyans and other nationalities at the DusitD2 Hotel Complex in Nairobi at the Riverside suburb.
The terrorists shall never, repeat, never triumph over the nation of Kenya. They shall not make us as a nation tremble with their evil schemes and the ideology of using force as a means of ventilating their perceived grievances.
But we must ask ourselves unpalatable questions everytime the enemy strikes; Are we as a nation better prepared to detect and prevent terrorism, having suffered devastating terror attacks in 1998 at the American Embassy, Westgate in 2013, Garissa University in 2015 among others?
Yes, where were the counter-terrorism special units when this gang of cowardly terrorists crawled through the heart of Nairobi to commit their heinous acts of terror on a five-star hotel situated hardly five Kilometres from the State House, the residence of the President of the Republic of Kenya? Or is it that as a nation we only become alert after terrorists strike and then let complacency rule once the last terrorist attack recedes in memory?
Kenya, standing as a nation must be guarded jealously so that it does not become the punching bug of Al Shabaab terrorists. The security agencies must answer the question with the hand sight of fools as to what ought to have been done that wasn’t done that allowed the terrorists to hit the targets they hit and who must take responsibility for the failure, lapses that allowed the enemy to yet again instil fear and massacre innocent Kenyans and other nationalities. Who must take responsibility and step down in the security agencies due to these failures that the enemy exploited?
Billions of shillings were invested by the Uhuru Government through Safaricom to install security cameras in Nairobi after the Westgate attack. How come they could not detect anything? Our security agencies have many questions to answer, otherwise, there is no reason for Kenyans not to believe that it’s just a question of a few years and the same Al Shabaab will strike the nation again, and make it like a walk in the park.
West Media sends its sincerest condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones in the terrorists attack on 15/01/2016 and quick recovery to those injured in the attack.
And can we be told as a nation the fate of the terrorists? Who else worked with them if they are dead? Those who aided and abetted them must face the full force of the law. Justice demands that those who commit any crime face the law and be punished appropriately. Unfortunately, the suspects of the Westgate massacre are still in court, more than five years on. How slow can our justice system be? Eternal vigilance and intelligent creative security solutions must be our goal if we have to win the war against terror.