Less than 24 hours after the militant group al-Shabab killed 36 people in Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta has ordered the dismissal of Joseph Ole Lenku, the country’s interior minister. David Kimaiyo, the police chief did not wait to be sacked before tendering his resignation.
Kenyatta assured Kenyans that the country would not flinch in the face of war terror, vowing to ensure that justice is done.
The militants first held their victims, all quarry workers, captive in the north-eastern Mandera region near the Somali border, before separating them along religious lines, killing all the non-Muslims.
According to BBC, Kenyatta said the war against Kenya and Kenyans was one every Kenyan must fight.
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“The time has come for each and every one of us to decide and choose — are you on the side of an open, free, democratic Kenya… or do you stand with repressive, intolerant extremists?” he asked.
He confirmed to the people that Ole Lenku had been fired, nominating an opposition politician and former army general, Joseph Nkaissery, as his replacement, while acknowledging the acceptance of Kimaiyo’s wish to retire.
Long before now, Kenyans have always blamed Kimaiyo and Ole Lenku for their inability to curb insurgency in the nation, expressing their pleasure over the departure of the duo from the government of the day.
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If Kenya’s parliament approves his nomination, Nkaissery will become the first opposition MP handed such a key ministerial post since Kenya adopted its new constitution in 2010.
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