Kenya police chief resigns after criticism over protest crackdown

Inspector-General of Police Japhet Koome resigns a day after President William Ruto dismissed almost his entire cabinet.

Kenya’s police chief has resigned after criticism of officers’ conduct during recent antigovernment demonstrations in which dozens of protesters were killed.

The presidency said in a statement on Friday that President William Ruto has “accepted the resignation” of Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome, who has served in the role since November 2022.

Deputy Inspector-General Douglas Kanja has been appointed acting police chief with immediate effect, the presidency said.

The announcement came a day after Ruto sacked nearly his entire cabinet, bowing to the demands of protesters.

Some of the young people behind the demonstrations had called for Koome to go, with police accused of using excessive force during the protests, the most serious crisis of Ruto’s near two-year presidency.

Kenya’s national rights watchdog said at least 39 people were killed in the antigovernment protests.

Reporting from Nairobi, Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi said Koome’s resignation was “very significant”.

“This is what these young protesters and many other Kenyans have been asking for. They were asking for the police chief to resign because of how he handled those protests,” she said.

“It wasn’t just tear gas the police were using, it was also live bullets. Some people are still in hospital because they were shot. Many others died because of the shooting.”

Ruto has taken a series of measures to placate the demonstrators, including abandoning the finance bill containing deeply unpopular tax increases that triggered the protests.

On Thursday, he dismissed the attorney general and all cabinet ministers, with the exception of Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

But the cabinet announcement, while welcomed by some, did not appease some young Kenyans frustrated with Ruto’s failure to deliver on his 2022 election promises to create jobs and boost their fortunes.

“We will be back on the streets until Ruto goes. He has wasted two years in office travelling and telling lies,” Hyrence Mwangi, 25, told the AFP news agency.

Initially peaceful, the protests sharply escalated when police fired at crowds who stormed parliament on June 25, ransacking the partly ablaze complex.

While large-scale street protests have subsided, anger against the government and the police has not.

“When we first went to the streets, Ruto dismissed us as a bunch of hired goons and criminals, only to come later and start saying he will make changes,” Jackson Rotich, 27, told AFP.

“We can’t trust him.”