The secrets of former top crime buster

By Kipchumba Some

Soon after coming to power in 2002, the Narc regime embarked on a massive purge of top officials in the security and public sectors who worked under former President Moi. Dr Francis K Sang who at the time held the critical post of the Director of Criminal Investigation Department was demoted a month into the coming to power of Narc.

He was moved to what was deemed to be a junior position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The mandarins of the new regime hoped that he would decline the less prestigious post and resign from the civil service. But he stayed put.

In the first ever memoir by a retired senior policeofficer, Sang narrates how he survived the bewildering ethnically-motivated political machinations of the new regime to become the first ever executive director of the Regional Centre on Small Arms, a diplomatic post that he says he got by default. Here is the story as penned in Dr Sang’s memoir, A Noble But Onerous Duty:

“It was beyond my wildest imagination as a trained career police officer that at one time in my long professional tour of duty, I would become a diplomat, especially in my own country.

Interestingly, my diplomatic mission did not happen by design but almost certainly by default.

The journey towards my diplomatic mission actually began in 2003 only one month after the new leadership of President Kibaki effected wide ranging changes among holders of key security offices in the country.

Small arms office

In the course of these changes, I was transferred to establish a previously non-existent small arms office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The new office was a British Government-funded project to support the control of the proliferation of small arms in the region.

Many people including my close friends regarded this transfer from being the Director of CID to a new office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a major demotion, especially considering the status of my new post compared to the one I previously held.  As Director of CID, I had slightly over 2,500 officers under my command, with 22 different sections headed by senior officers of different cadres at the headquarters and similarly at provincial and district levels.

To my amazement, upon reporting to my new office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I learned that there was not a single member of staff assigned to work with me, not even a secretary.

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