KAIKAI'S KICKER: Hello 999, mheshimiwa is not above the law!

There is an urgent need to review the relationship between politicians and the police. I call it urgent because in this past one week, some of our politicians proved that they can not only erode the confidence of our individual police officers; they may also, given more of the same latitude they enjoy currently, render our National Police Service irrelevant as an institution.

This week, a video circulated showing Nakuru West Member of Parliament Samuel Arama in an apparent altercation with the police. Without delving into details of the incident, it was disappointing to watch the helplessness of a police officer, a law enforcer clearly at the mercy of a politician who even had higher powers to summon.

This incident recorded somewhere in Nakuru illustrates what police officers go through in the hands of powerful, well connected and untouchable politicians. First, their bosses will be called and the foot soldier will be left squeezing the phone embarrassingly to their ears - moving a few steps away to salvage their dignity.

Just look what that moment of humiliation does; the politician becomes a lion and upgrades the humiliation. He now threatens to set the police car on fire.

With the poor policeman now completely intimidated, the politician grows a larger mane and enlists the support of a rowdy crowd.

The politician was in perfect surroundings complete with an agitated crowd that can easily do his bidding. And so it was no surprise when Arama decided to crown it all by chasing the policemen out...

 I watched that video and wondered, what if the last thread of law and order depended on this moment? And what if the police officers, imperfect as they may be, were actually out on lawful duty? Why didn't they stand their ground and enforce the law as they had set out? I also couldn't help asking, what if MP Samuel Arama tried this in America? All I know is that video would have been so unfortunately and so ruthlessly much shorter.

But here are two learnings from the Nakuru video. First, our police officers are hopeless chicken in front of politicians. They cower, they whimper and even literally shrink inside their uniform. And not to blame them, police officers fear jeopardising their careers in moments like this. Those calls Arama was making can be consequential and stories abound of firm officers who end up home or some far off outpost as punishment.

Secondly, the Nakuru video shows politicians in Kenya to a large extent operate above the law. If MP Arama was that random village drunkard, he'd be dead, a victim of anything legally justifiable like the use of reasonable force or even accidental discharge of firearm occasioned by a confrontational suspect.

But politicians know they are not that random drunkard. They are bearers of power over others including those helpless policemen in Nakuru.  Whether it is corruption, murder, rape, assault, nightclubs shootings, traffic offences or even a random police check, it helps to be a mheshimiwa in Kenya.

Just ask three people; MP Samuel Arama, that police officer in Nakuru and whoever mheshimiwa Arama was calling.