Children of graduate police officers joined their Gen Z counterparts in the national demonstrations against the Finance Bill, 2024 on Tuesday.
The youths expressed their parents’ frustrations, citing discrimination and poor terms and conditions of work.
Graduate police officers’ children who spoke to the Star during the demonstrations said other than being part of Gen Z hence facing the same challenges with their counterparts across the country, they decided to join the demonstrations to speak for their parents, majority of whom suffer in silence.
They were children whose parents serve in various units within the National Police Service.
“Our parents are suffering a lot as they struggle to raise, educate and fend for families as they execute their mandate of protecting Kenyans’ lives and property as well as maintaining law and order. Despite their frustrations, nobody agitates for their rights. This is why we have joined in the national demonstrations today,” one of the protestors said in Nairobi on Tuesday.
They waved placards, carried banners and wore t–shirts with messages about their grievances.
“Justice to even our police parents. Mr Koome, please promote my mum who is a constable and cannot afford my college fees despite being a master’s degree holder. She graduated from Nairobi University with masters degree,” read one of the banners.
Another banner read, “Plight of graduate police: Stop discrimination in the police profession. Graduate is a graduate, why promote a few and leave others? They are our fathers and siblings, allocate enough funds for them and stop misusing them.”
Some of the graduate police officers who spoke to the Star in confidence for fear of victimisation said they lack morale.
“We are suffering in silence since, despite being the line of defense against any violent rioter, no allowances are paid to us during such risky operations. We always put our lives at stake with no motivation for the risky job,” a graduate police officer said.
“This usually happens against a revelation that there is a kitty for security operations, but the money is stolen by the police commanders.”
Another officer said there was rigidity in the service to embrace professionalism.
“Interestingly, police has abundance of graduate police professionals with diverse skills and expertise to help the police service manage modern security challenges. However, the graduate officers never get promoted or given a chance to serve or command in their areas of expertise like ICT, HR, intelligence gathering and crime investigations,” an officer said.
“With the Gen Z youth widely using technology and social media to mobilise, majority of police commanders who are not tech-savvy end up failing terribly in managing security operations.”
Another officer complained about their medical cover.
“Officers who put their lives on line in these security operations are no longer covered to receive top medical services from established health facilities. They used to get such services through NHIF, but it's no longer the case,” the officer said.
The officers also raised concerns on their tools of work, which they claimed were inadequate.
“It's now evident that during the recent demonstrations, police were seen shouting all over that they didn't have enough tear gas canisters. This, therefore, implies that sometimes they may get tempted to use live ammunition in case they get overwhelmed,” an officer said.
In September 2019, some 1,774 graduate police officers threatened to resign over what they termed as poor pay and discrimination.
