Fred Matiang’i: The Tyrant's Reformist lie as experienced by Kenya’s Police Officers

By Fred Allan Nyankuru

Ask any police officer in Kenya, and they will tell you that when Dr. Fred Matiang’i was appointed Cabinet Secretary for the Interior Ministry, there was hope in the air. At last, they thought, reforms were coming. At last, the years of stagnation, poor pay, and neglect would be addressed.

But instead of reforms, what police officers received was betrayal. Matiang’i presided over one of the darkest chapters for the National Police Service. He sold efficiency to the public, but what he gave the officers was oppression, corruption, and career destruction.

Kenya’s police officers are some of the most self-driven and self-taught men and women in public service. Many have pursued further education in criminology, law, psychology, forensic science, ICT, and other relevant fields while still serving in uniform. They did this hoping that one day merit would count. They did this believing that reforms would reward their effort and sacrifice.

But Matiang’i dashed those hopes. Instead of promoting from within the service, he introduced a corruption-ridden charade. He claimed to be employing “experts.” In truth, he was parachuting into the force the children of the wealthy, the politically connected, and the well-placed.

These children —who had taken basic and mostly irrelevant university courses with little application to police work —were given inspector badges after a mere nine months of basic police training. They skipped ranks. They skipped sweat. They skipped experience. And every single one of them — 100% —got there through corruption, through privilege, through connections.

Meanwhile, seasoned officers with decades of experience and hard-earned knowledge were left to stagnate in the lower ranks, their dreams crushed, their morale shattered.

Who can forget Matiang’i’s obsession with changing the police uniform? A needless, cosmetic, and entirely corrupt exercise that did nothing to improve service delivery or police welfare. Millions were poured into new fabrics and contracts, yet officers remained poorly housed, poorly paid, and poorly equipped.

Instead of tackling the real problems of the service —morale, promotions, housing, and pay —Matiang’i distracted the nation with empty theatrics, all while corruption thrived behind the scenes.

Perhaps Matiang’i’s most unforgivable legacy was his refusal to reform the police promotion regime. To this day, ranks remain chained to job groups, a system so rigid that it is entirely possible —and common —for an officer to join the service in one job group and retire 35 or 40 years later in the very same group.

This is not reform. It is institutionalised injustice. It is legalised stagnation. And Matiang’i defended it fiercely, as though the police were condemned by law to suffer in silence, to wallow in squalor, and to die without ever tasting dignity in their careers.

Matiang’i sold himself as an efficient technocrat —tough, no-nonsense, a man who gets things done. But beneath the facade was a tyrant who destroyed careers, killed morale, entrenched corruption, and widened inequality within the service. The public saw the optics. The police lived the reality. And the reality is this: Matiang’i was no reformer. He was a disaster.

Kenya must never be fooled by appearances, media narratives, or the false efficiency of men like Fred Matiang’i. The police deserve genuine reforms —reforms that reward merit, end stagnation, improve welfare, and build morale.

Matiang’i left behind not progress, but bitterness. Not reforms, but betrayal. And we must never forget that when he had the power to uplift, he chose to oppress.