The Commissioner's statement was targeted at our politicians, who even the deafest Kenyan must concede comprise people who would do us a national favour by forever holding their peace. This spirit of national reticence however must best extend to Vigilance House for if the Commissioner knows anything, he should know that his was the sort of empty talk that is best suited for politicians, not for civil servants of office as high as his.

Campaign periods like the one that prompted Commissioner Ali to make his statement are fraught in our country with people making all sorts of wild allegations, the sort of tarring that could demolish a political career and that militate against the democracy we are trying to build in Kenya. It is not even campaign time yet but it is clear that many media houses, and politicians are already eager to get into the mud-slinging.

The parameters of free speech were most famously elaborated in the ruling in Schenk vs. the United States where Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr rightly averred that even the most stringent standards of free speech protection would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and as a result causing a panic. The test then is whether such words used are of such a nature as to cause danger and bring about such damage as even a state that prmotes free speech must protect its citizens from.

The abridgement of the inciter's freedom of speech is therefore in the public interest, and the smouldering ashes and the caked blood in Mt Elgon and Tana River could not underline this point more emphatically. It is in this regard that the Commissioner's warning was timely and laudable. Incitement to violence is undoubtedly wrong, especially as the politicians are unlikely to remain about to bear the consequences of their incitement. The whole nation is undoubtedly in support of the core statement that ,

"As we approach the political campaign period this year, with all its attendant passions and excitement, it is necessary that we remind ourselves of the need to conduct our political campaigns in a civil and lawful manner."

However, to pick on the President as worthy of his protection is over-stepping both the law and the good Commissioner's abilities, as is the directive against politicians making unscheduled stops to address impromptu rallies or using insulting language. None of these actions can be defined objectively and the danger of making martyrs out of politicians, and then following these with humiliating comedowns is very real.

Even greater is the danger that the Kenya Police are portrayed as being anti-politicians, or pro-government. It is this more than anything that the Police Commissioner should worry about. The emotional highs of the campaign period demand that the police be mobilised as rarely as possible, that they referee and not participate in the debate. A more reasonable approach would have been to engage in low-level behind the scenes work with the political parties to ensure a violence free election. Now, every old fool will try to earn his stripes by breaking the Commissioner's bounds, and what will you do then?