Nairobi police boss Adamson Bungei responds to Azimios protest notice

Nairobi Regional Police Commander Adamson Bungei now says that the opposition Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition party’s notification of protests to be held next week in a letter addressed to his office is null and void.

This comes after Azimio, through its Executive Council Chairman Wycliffe Oparanya, on Wednesday notified the police boss of their intent to stage a peaceful procession on Monday and Thursday next week in Nairobi city.

Oparanya, in the letter seen by Citizen Digital, said their procession will take place on all major streets in the Nairobi Central Business District, thereby asking Mr. Bungei to deploy enough police officers for security.

However. according to Mr. Bungei, while not entirely wrong in doing so, the notification letter was addressed to the wrong person.

The police boss, in a subsequent press address, said that the Azimio team should instead have addressed and served the letter to the Officer Commanding Police Station (OCS) of the area where they expect to stage their procession.

He hence urged the opposition team to go ahead and follow due process and furnish the area police station chief, in this case presumably the Nairobi Central Police Station OCS, with their letter of intent on time before staging the protests.

“We have procedures on how we serve the letters for protest or picketing, as guided by the law. Under Section 2 of the Public Order Act, it is indicated very clearly who is the regulating officer of the permits to be issued – it is the officer in charge of a police station. At this level of mine, this is a regional command, whereby we dispense services to the police stations,” he said.

“Therefore, in this matter related to the issue of protests, it has to be served to the police station. We’re not saying that we refuse to pick or not, we’re guided by the law that this document needs to be delivered Officer Commanding Police Station, in the area which the proposed procession would be held.”

He further added: “In case it will be a procession, the Officer Commanding Police Station of that area is the one to regulate the business of that procession. Therefore, I advise the team from Azimio to directly go and serve the Officer Commanding Police Station where they want to hold their procession or protest.”

Mr. Bungei further went ahead to absolve police officers of any blame as far as chaos witnessed during the Monday March 20 protests go, saying they were only doing their job.

The city police boss also insisted that the said protests, which were led by Mr. Odinga, were illegal since they did not notify the relevant authorities on time.

“The (notice) was declined, that tells you it was an illegal demonstration, so the police had to do their work,” he stated.

This comes after Mr. Odinga on Tuesday vowed to take legal action against the Nairobi Regional Police Commander over the chaos and violence witnessed in the city on Monday during their anti-government protests.