BY STAR REPORTER
IG Joseph Boinnet was saved from shame by his juniors after the Secret Service blocked him from accessing JKIA's VIP area as the US President left the country last Sunday.
The junior GSU officers also pleaded with the SS to allow access to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s aide de camp and Foreign Affairs CS Amina Mohammed.
The three had been barred by Barack Obama’s security from entering the VIP area as he boarded his Air Force One plane for Ethiopia.
It took the intervention of Recce unit officers, who were in uniform, to escort them into the area in the apron, where Obama bid them farewell.
The Secret Service had restricted the area to seven top government officials, who only included Uhuru's family.
Ordinarily, Boinnet, the ADC and Amina would not be denied access to any government facilities in the country.
The junior officer, said to have had been called by his seniors at GSU after the three were locked out, approached a Secret Service agent and explained to her that the three were top government officials.
It is at that point that the American security staff allowed them to walk into the area.
On Wednesday, sources said senior police commanders will, as a tradition, receive a briefing from GSU commandant Joel Kitili on the success, challenges and lessons learnt in guarding the worlds most protected president.
Top GSU commanders have reported guarding Obama was 90 per cent successful but for laxity exhibited by their colleagues in general duties.
Some heads of Obama's security demanded the removal of general duty officers who were guarding one of the city hotels where his team was sleeping.
The top commanders were concerned that some of the officers sat in groups to chat, hence their replacement with GSU officers.
The treatment accorded to Kenyan VIPs by the Obama security has generated a lot of comments on social media.
Former Police spokesman Erick Kiraithe, who is the Airport head of security, was screened by Obama's team in what came as a shock to many Kenyan observers.
Kiraithe told journalists that his screening was a sign of best policing practices in the world.
The issue drew mixed reactions; some commentators applauded it while others said the US government was being insensitive to Kenyan VIPs.
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