When Prof. Kithure Kindiki was appointed Interior Cabinet Secretary, there were whoops of derision.

He was then seen as a soft spoken legal scholar who had wrongly wandered into politics and was still trying to find his footing, too soft for the internal security position that is literally the country’s sink whose work is to sieve all toxins from the system.

No wonder then, that he was elbowed out of the position of running mate in the UDA presidential ticket.
Fast forward 11 months later. The notorious North Rift that bandits had taken over and created their own caliphate for 60 years has gone quiet. Peace reigns. Residents who have not known a day’s peace in that entire period can now have a sound night’s sleep.

The good Professor simply camped in those areas. Bandits were either killed, or they decommissioned themselves. It has been months since a single incident of cattle rustling or killings.

Critically, the government has started a “Marshall Plan” for the North Rift. It is using the military and National Youth Service to build new model schools, rebuild those that had been destroyed, and construct roads and irrigation projects. Kindiki announced that it will be compulsory to send all children to school in that region.

There will be permanent military barracks in the North Rift to secure the region against all forms of insecurity.

As soon as North Rift quietened down, the man was on his next stop- Nyayo House Immigration Department. The passport department has become a cesspool of corruption, sloth and cartels.

Tens of thousands of frustrated Kenyans have had their hopes, aspirations and dreams shattered by completely insensitive bureaucrats who feel nothing about the suffering of Kenyans.

Well, the Professor, in his inimitable cool, soft spoken fashion, started walking through the corridors of that Department.

In two weeks since he started his “visits,’ over 30,000 passports have been magically processed. Kindiki has promised that in the next one week, the backlog of 58,000 passports that he found at Nyayo House will be cleared, with no money changing hands.

Now, instead of frustrated Kenyans, the scenes outside Nyayo House are of joyful citizens collecting their passports in disbelief. The CS has vowed that this situation will never arise again, and that Kenyans must receive their passports within the stipulated time after applying.

As soon as this pipeline was unclogged, his next stop took him to the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI), where over 10,000 certificates of good conduct have been stuck for months. How?

In an office where people report to work every day and are being paid by public funds to serve Kenyans? This kind of dereliction of duty is completely unacceptable. It is criminal sloth.

After Kindiki’s visit to DCI, expect to see a deluge of certificates of conduct “miraculously” processed and thousands of Kenyans, whose hopes, dreams and aspirations had been dashed by official intransigence, start receiving their documents.

The good Prof. seems to have a plan that he is methodically working through. The results are all too apparent for everybody to see. Kudos to the man and his switched on team! Kindiki is restoring shattered confidence of Kenyans that the government can actually work.

The CS epitomises the KK government’s approach to sorting out the country’s problems. In Kenya, until now, nothing moved in government without cash or connections.

The poor at the bottom of the pyramid have borne the brunt. For them, the system has been broken. These are the people for whom this government was voted into office.

Each CS must, therefore, ask themselves-how am I interpreting the bottom up approach in my strategy? How am I translating the mandate of my ministry to change the lives of the underprivileged in Kenya?
How am I dismantling decades of privilege and cartels that have marginalized the vast majority of Kenyans, and mired millions in poverty and deprivation?

At this point, too many CSs don’t seem to have a clue. They need to start shaping up! Kindiki is blazing the way.
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