Dear Gen Z, there's no democracy in police service

If founding President Jomo Kenyatta woke up from the dead and heard that John Harun Mwau single-handedly stopped a police recruitment drive as the government merely coiled tail and watched, he would summon certain people to Gatundu and whip them a good one. How?  

With one signature, Mwau, a former inspector of police, put a spanner in the works for hundreds of thousands of young men and women who are dying to become cops. I have heard rumours that some were already armed with fake Form Four certificates, and that others had already stuffed “insurance” in the form of crumbled, Sh50 notes in their underwear or anything to join the Kenya Police Service and flee from poverty.

Now, I don’t wish to rain on you parade, kids, but you had better listen up. Being a police officer is not a “job” like working in a bank. That thing is a smoking teargas canister.

First, all jobs come with occupational hazards, but police work is the craziest. The long-distance truck driver’s occupational hazard is siring children all over East Africa or picking up drug-resistant bugs at remote, roadside village towns. But an officer could get killed by a stray bullet fired by a random colleague who’s gone nuts because their stupid lover is cheating on them. Would you believe it?

Second, policing is crazy. You spend months doing nothing big: chasing chang’aa addicts all over the place, opening and shutting government gates, filling forms next to a stinky cell with a bucket toilet, or walking up and down alleys with a big gun, handling marital disputes…nothing happens. And then, out of the blue, boom! There is a bloody traffic accident, or some lunatic is spraying bullets in your direction. This wild mixture of boredom and sudden, life-threatening experiences can thoroughly mess up your mental health. If your medulla oblongata is not firmly wired on your shoulders, back off.

Third, and contrary to your imagination, police officers aren’t paid a lot of money. You could, of course, become rich, but chewing bribes isn’t as easy as it looks. You could nourish your belly on mlungula (bribes) nicely for years, and then one morning, your lovely wife turns on the television and catches you fleeing like a chicken with jealous, handcuff-wielding anti-corruption sleuths in hot pursuit.

Fourth, and this is for the boys, you have probably seen a police officer kissing the prettiest lass in a pub and thought, “Hmm, I want that, too.” Unfortunately, you could be deployed to one of the most godforsaken and dangerous places on earth where accessing coitus is a pipe dream. Seeing as you might only touch your spouse or girlfriend three times a year, avoid police recruitment if you are incapable of befriending abstinence, condoms or the “monkey business”.  

Fifth, the disciplined force is not a democracy. If you have fancy ideas about your voice being heard, but being respected at the work place ... don’t bother. If you particularly hate being ordered around and love flexible working hours and posting dance videos on social media, forget it. 

And now to the difficult part. If you have anger management issues, please don’t become a cop because you run the risk of boxing your boss, or shooting someone in a bar and getting jailed over a nonsensical argument.

Above all, if you remotely consider yourself stupid, abort mission. Do NOT join the police service. One can be a ridiculously stupid but famously succeed as a teacher, professor, politician, political analyst, billionaire, boss or chicken thief. But a stupid cop? That is a dead man or woman walking. Look, whenever very clever people get into real trouble, the first person they call is the police. You think they call them because they are stupid?

I should, however, also warn that if you consider yourself too clever, the police service is not meant for you either. Those within and outside the service that you consider stupid will make your life a living hell.

Finally, my child, remember that the wananchi you will be required to serve and protect with your life, and whom you will occasionally be called upon to beat up, hold you in grinding contempt.