East African Legislative Assembly member Joseph Kiangoi has challenged the government to consider deploying more security officers in institutions of higher learning to secure them from possible terrorist attacks.
Speaking at St Ann’s college in Borabu constituency on Monday, Kiangoi said the institutions were still vulnerable to terror attacks given the few number of police officers guarding them.
This comes after Garissa University College reopened yesterday after it was closed following terror attack that led to the death of over 148 people, mostly students.
“I am still not convinced on the security in our institutions of higher learning. Police officers manning them are few and time has come to be proactive by deploying more officers to man them. These institutions are still vulnerable to attacks,” he said.
He also suggested introduction of plain cloth police the institutions to conduct intelligence gathering that could lead to apprehending of students who may be colluding with terrorists to launch attacks in the colleges.
“It's not just the uniformed police, we need even the plain cloth police to be part of intelligence gathering team because even students can collude with terrorists to execute attacks. We saw what happened in Garissa because one of the attackers was a graduate,” he said.
Kiangoi also urged students to be vigil and report to the security officers people who they may suspect of being strangers to the institutions.
“I know that even many colleges are not yet guarded. We need officers in those colleges and also high ranking secondary schools. Students also have a role to play in working with security details,” he said.