An efficient and highly motivated national police service is essential in ensuring law and order. Therefore, the looming power struggle between Inspector-General of Police Douglas Kenya and the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) over the hiring of 10,000 new officers does not augur well for the country.

It is likely to derail the recruitment with the commission now sharply split into factions. A power struggle is raging, as the NPSC has written to the IG to reclaim the human resource functions, including hiring, promotions, and transfers. And it has also gone ahead to initiate countrywide public hearings on new recruitment guidelines.

It is a pity that there is an apparent supremacy battle ahead of the recruitment scheduled for next month. The IG and his deputies are opposed to a new system that allows online applications. The civilian commissioners, led by the newly appointed chairman, Dr Amani Yudo Komora, are insisting that IG Kanja must surrender all the human resource functions, including the Sh60 billion police payroll, and the functions of hiring, transferring, and promoting officers.

The National Security Council, which is a high-level organ chaired by the President, has reportedly advised that the proposed system be suspended. Therefore, the traditional one in which youth turn up at recruitment centres should be continued.

As this key agency has pronounced itself on the matter, it is intriguing that the NPSC team, of which the IG is also a member, though now at loggerheads with his colleagues, would insist on going ahead with it. The commission is conducting nationwide public hearings on the proposed recruitment system.

Either Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen or President William Ruto should intervene to give direction so that the planned major recruitment of police officers is not thrown into disarray.

The power struggle between the IG and the commission should be stopped before it adversely affects policing, especially at this time when security agencies must up their game to curb internal and external threats.