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The Judicial Service Commission claimed on Monday that High Court judge Lawrence Mugambi’s security detail was withdrawn because of his ruling on Friday in which he sentenced acting Inspector General of Police Gilbert Masengeli to jail for six months for contempt of court.

As the Independent Policing Oversight Authority investigates the matter, it should be noted that government officials have previously resorted to this tactic to punish persons they deem to be critical of them.

Among the prominent people whose bodyguards were withdrawn in unclear circumstances were Azimio coalition leader Raila Odinga, former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta, Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, other Azimio leaders and some members of the National Police Service Commission.

Neither the government nor the police gave satisfactory reasons for the knee-jerk decisions.

In July last year, for example, the government withdrew Raila’s security just days before his planned anti-government protests. More than 10 police officers who protected him as he went about his daily duties and those guarding his homes in Nairobi, Kisumu and Siaya were immediately withdrawn.

The State also pulled the bodyguards of Musyoka and more than 50 Azimio MPs.

At the time of the planned protests, Azimio leaders claimed that the government had hatched a plot to harm them. Four Nyanza governors also lost their bodyguards – Gladys Wanga (Homa Bay), James Orengo (Siaya), Anyang Nyong’o (Kisumu) and Ochilo Ayacko (Migori). The officers were directed to report to Kisumu ahead of the planned countrywide three-day mass demonstrations.

Around the same time, the government withdrew Mama Ngina Kenyatta’s security. After a furore ensued, all armed police officers were redeployed to Mama Ngina’s Nairobi and Gatundu homes and her private businesses.

The officers – drawn from the General Service Unit (GSU) and Administration Police – had been withdrawn from those locations one evening without any explanation.

This prompted the Kenyatta family to deploy private guards at Mama Ngina’s residence in Nairobi’s Muthaiga estate.

The guards were deployed moments after the GSU and APs left. The family took similar actions at her Gatundu home and her other properties.

The pulling of the guards had been anticipated, after some government officials accused former President Uhuru Kenyatta, a son of Mama Ngina, of funding the anti-government protests.

When the guards were withdrawn, Gatundu South MP Gabriel Kagombe said they would “not be reinstated any time soon”.

Kagombe claimed more officers had only been ‘idling’ at Mama Ngina’s premises and had to be redeployed to help contain mass protests across the country.

Mama Ngina’s security had been scaled down from 30 in late 2022 to only 10 following accusations from Kenya Kwanza leaders that Uhuru Kenyatta had been sponsoring Azimio’s protests.

At the height of tension between the police and the NPSC commissioners in July 2013, drivers and bodyguards attached to the commissioners, then led by Johnston Kavuludi, were disarmed and ordered to report to stations in their home counties.

The then IG David Kimaiyo gave the instructions when the commissioners were holding a meeting at Serena Hotel in Nairobi to launch teams that would spearhead police reforms.

The bodyguards had escorted the commissioners to the meeting and were waiting for the event to end when three senior officers arrived and ordered them to surrender their guns. The officers then asked the five bodyguards to leave the hotel and report to new stations.

The Kavuludi team then sought an audience with the PS, saying the pulling of guards was part of efforts by police bosses to intimidate them.

But IG Kimaiyo maintained that the move was in line with a new policy that was meant to ensure police officers performed the “core duties they are supposed to do”.

“We are not targeting anyone in this exercise. It is a policy that some of these commissioners and some non-elected leaders should not get the security they have been enjoying because there is nothing that is of threat to them,” he said then.

In January 2020, the government announced that any senior government official or politician who was involved or suspected to be involved in crime would not get security until they were cleared by courts.

The then IG Hillary Mutyambai directed that VIPs who were civilian firearm holders would have their firearm certificates cancelled and the weapons withdrawn forthwith.