Protests showed police service is ill-equipped

The Generation Z protests exposed the darker side of an under-equipped Kenya Police Service that has been left behind technologically by a tech-savvy generation that employed unconventional tech-backed tactics to overwhelm a generally clueless police force.

I will dwell on the glaring ineffectiveness of the force. One, it was clear that the police are not properly equipped to handle matters like online mobilisation. That thousands of youth could mobilise themselves to tragic consequences using Twitter is purely the work of a genius.

We cannot, however, say this of our police officers, who seem allergic to technology. Many a time during the protests, the force was caught napping on the job, leading to an unprecedented invasion of Parliament.

The second challenge was the use of outdated crowd management techniques. What on earth were armoured vehicles doing on our streets against 16-year olds? Methinks that drone technology to monitor crowd movements would have been more appropriate. 

Another challenge exposed by the protests: command. The forces seemed clueless or ill-prepared. The invasion of our hallowed Parliament serves to illustrate this. The question remains - how did the rioters manage to do this? Did our commanders not foresee this coming?

Either there was deliberate sabotage from within or an intelligence failure.

— Thomas Chemelil is a commentator on politics and culture