No, you didn’t just ask Kenyans to peel tints off their cars

after Inspector General David Kimaiyo issued his would-be controversial orders, a friend of mine on Facebook said he often wonders if Kenya is a real country or a satirical project. I do not blame the said friend as I do at times ask the same question in less articulate thoughts. The Inspector General, I do not doubt, is coming from a good place but good places are not always informed or well thought out. Asking Kenyans to have an idea who their neighbours are or to be actively involved in fighting crime by acquiring a greater sense of their surrounding is reasonable. Asking Kenyans to whip out their IDs every time they need public transport, know who sits beside them and peel the tint off their cars, now that is where the grey scale checks in. Soon after Kimaiyo’s orders became public knowledge, the ever wired #KOT started a hilarious trend #newkimaiyoorders. The ‘twiteratti’, as the virtual offensive is often referred to, tore into the IG’s new directive making ludicrous statements on what he will ask of Kenyans next. ‘ Not to wear shades’, ‘ to walk naked lest they hide weapons under their clothes ’, ‘to bleach their dark skin so they are more visible to police officers’.
Read more at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/thenair

The general and later popular sentiment was that the police force was being unreasonable; but more than that, what the Twitter hashtag cut into was the growing concern of overreaching government surveillance. Those tweets, in jest were asking the important question of where security measures stop and when government manipulation of fear begins.