JAMILA’S MEMO: When the uniform forgets its authority

But if you watched them side-by-side, you could be forgiven for wondering whether we are dealing with one police service or two completely different institutions depending on who is standing in front of the uniform.

In the first video, recorded at the Diani Police Station, a foreign national, a Dutchman stood before Kenyan police officers and insulted them.

He shouted at them. He spat at them. He wiped mucus on the uniform of a police officer whose only visible response was stillness, perhaps shock, perhaps restraint, perhaps… something else.

He did not just disrupt the station, he took charge of it. He spoke over the officers, strutted about the room and dictated the tone. And I really would love to believe that this remarkable gentleness from the police had absolutely nothing to do with his nationality or the color of his skin.

That we simply happened to witness the most patient and controlled police officers in the country. The kind that many Kenyans do not encounter on highways, at protests, or even at an ordinary police station.

But then came the second video, this one from Eldoret.

Now this video shows a police officer harassing a defenseless Kenyan woman. No hesitation. No restraint. No waiting to assess the situation. Just pushing and shoving a woman..

So, in one week, the police showed us two extremes: Meekness where firmness was required. Force where humanity was required.

The contradiction is not just visual. It is about who the police believe they can confront and who they believe they must not upset.

Because we know and we should not pretend otherwise that a Kenyan, without a foreign passport, without that complexion privilege, could not walk into a station, spit on officers, and walk out upright.

When authority collapses, trust dissolves. And when trust dissolves the law becomes negotiable.

This week, the National Police Service entered a quiet note into the nation’s Occurrence Book.

Not about crime, but about esteem, about dignity, about who they believe deserves respect and who they believe deserves force. Because this week we saw the law. But we also saw its bias.

My prayer is, may our systems learn to treat dignity as a right not a privilege

And that is my memo.