Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja and his two deputies, Gilbert Masengeli (Administration Police) and Eliud Lagat (Kenya Police), have perfected impromptu visits to police stations in the pretext of putting their officers on their toes.

The three have visited several stations purporting to inspect standards, the professionalism exhibited by the officers and their living conditions.

And through the seemingly stage-managed tours, some officers have earned direct promotions without going through the rigorous training process.

While these visits, often portrayed as surprise inspections, aim to ensure that police officers are adhering to standards of professionalism and discipline and provide an opportunity for the officers to voice their concerns, in reality, they have been turned into a window-dressing routine.

Since independence, such PR stunts have never proved to offer any solution to the numerous challenges facing policing.

In most cases, the visits have always been perceived as top-down surveillance rather than a genuine effort to improve the working conditions of officers, who continue to live in squalor despite feigned government efforts to put up affordable houses for them and other Kenyans.

Officers, already overburdened and under-appreciated, have often viewed these tours with scepticism, knowing that they are merely a brief and superficial check-in that will not lead to any substantive change.

Moreover, they tend to focus on visible aspects of police work, such as uniforms, station cleanliness and immediate cases of misconduct, without delving into the underlying causes of widespread challenges such as low morale, inadequate training, underfunding and the dire state of police housing.

As long as the focus remains on cosmetic checks, the real issues will continue to fester beneath the surface.

Ironically, the trips have appeared to concentrate on stations in urban areas, particularly in Nairobi, Nakuru, Thika, Mombasa and Eldoret where officers live and work in comfort while ignoring hardship regions such as Mandera, Wajir, Pokot, Turkana and Baringo where officers live in perpetual fear of losing their lives due to the hostile work environment.