MAL:31:19
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Marketing Africa limited
P. O. Box 36481- 00200
Nairobi, Kenya
Cell: +254 - 717 - 529 052
Email: [email protected]
Marketing Africa Team
William Kalombo, Mutua Mutua,
Riapius Magoma, Allan Muraya, Fred
Ombati
Editorial Contributors
Mutua Mutua
Herman Githinji
Diana Obath
Pauline Mwatu
Eugene Wanekeya
Senorine Wasike
Irene Mbonge
Enock Wandera
Joe Nyutu
Richard Wanjohi
Robert Wamai
Dr. Clifford Ferguson
Carolyne Gathuru
Marion Wakahe
Kepha Nyanumba
Wasilwa Miriongi
Dr. Maureen Owiti
George Mbithi
Isaac Ngatia
Walter Nyabundi
Boniface Ngahu
Margaret Muriithi
Susan Makau
Janet Sudi
Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
Denis Mbau
FIRST WORD
A Tribute
O
n one fateful morning a senior police officer presented
himself at the offices of a prominent businessman and asked
to see him, The businessman was rightly puzzled and a bit
apprehensive that a police officer wished to see him.
This is Kenya and any visit from the police is enough to create a cold
sweat, a friend once remarked that in developed countries when you
are in trouble you go to a policeman but in Kenya when a policeman
comes to you, you are in trouble.
His initial feelings of unease and trepidation soon turned to
amazement when the friendly officer calmly announced, while
making an apology for not making a prior appointment, that he was
making a courtesy call on what he called his ‘customers’.
He wished to know from the ‘customer’ if security in the area was
up to expectation and what, in the ‘customer’s opinion, the police
should be doing to ensure they felt safe, protected and part of the
community.
Needless to say the businessman was flabbergasted and stunned by
what he was hearing, he asked the officer to sit down and have a cup
of tea while he listened to the surprising cop as he expounded on
what he believed to be his job.
That was the beginning of an extraordinary relationship that so
transformed the businessman’s perception of the police for good.
One officer had put a human face to the entire force and made him
rethink and reevaluate all his past prejudices.
Not long after that cordial visit the businessman returned the
courtesy by visiting the officer, who he now considered a friend.
What he found at the police station was heart rending. The police
officers lived in deplorable conditions.
The station was a rundown relic of the colonial era and officer’s
quarters were an eyesore not to mention that the station was
accommodating probably five times the population it was originally
designed to hold with lack of water being an added misery.
The businessman could not reconcile the image of the affable police
officer and the dehumanizing conditions that his men and women
lived in. These circumstances were too degrading to ignore and it set
the businessman thinking.
Marketing Africa Magazine is published by Marketing Africa
Limited. Views expressed in the articles and contributions are
not neccessarily those of the publisher. The Publisher reserves
all rights. Could there be a relationship between one’s living conditions and
the type of service that the inhabitants would give. What connection
did the police officer have with the upper class residents whose lives
he was supposed to secure?
Material may only be reproduced with prior arrangement and
due acknowledgement to Marketing Africa Magazine. Feedback For the first time the businessman felt embarrassed by the fact that
the living conditions of the man he depended upon to safeguard his
wellbeing, was a life no better than a slum dweller. We have invested
too little on the very people we entrust with our lives.
E: [email protected] W: www.marketingafrica.co.ke
@MarketingAfrica
Marketing Africa How could the community foster a better rapport with the police,
he mused, how could we build a more harmonious relationship with
02 MAL31/19 ISSUE