Nairobi Governor Sakaja Johnson announced 2,500 officers from the Nairobi County Inspectorate and the National Police Service will undergo intensive training to support the creation of a specialized Nairobi Metropolitan Police Unit.
Speaking after a church service at St. Austin’s Church in Westlands on Sunday, Sakaja said the training will equip the officers with skills suited to Nairobi’s security needs, noting that the city’s daytime population tops seven million.
He said the programme will run under a cooperation agreement between the national and county governments, and it will help shift policing away from traffic-only patrols toward stronger security patrols and faster response across the city.
“We will train 2,500 police officers drawn from the county and the National Police Service. They will receive rigorous training to tackle the city’s security challenges. Nairobi needs more security patrols than traffic patrols because it is a city of seven million people with unique security needs,” Sakaja said.
The governor also announced plans to transform Kamukunji Police Station into the headquarters of the Nairobi Metropolitan Police Unit, with rehabilitation and expansion work to upgrade it into the unit’s command center.
As part of broader security reforms, Sakaja said Nairobi will also install an integrated, citywide CCTV surveillance system linked to a new Traffic Management Center (TMC) at City Cabanas along Mombasa Road.
The multi-billion-shilling facility will function as the city’s digital command center, where teams will coordinate AI-driven surveillance, police monitoring operations, and automated traffic enforcement.
Sakaja added that the system will also link up with CCTV cameras owned by private institutions and businesses. That integration will improve crime detection, monitoring, and emergency response across Nairobi.
“The use of cameras will matter. City Cabanas will host Nairobi’s new digital traffic nerve hub, and we will connect it with private cameras to strengthen security and improve how we respond to incidents across the city,” he said.
Sakaja also said he and the Cabinet Secretary for Interior conducted benchmarking visits to New York and London to study modern metropolitan policing models. He said the lessons they learned will guide Nairobi’s new security setup.
“We have benchmarked in New York and London as we seek to move our country forward. Security remains one of the most critical issues in any city, which is why we implement this under the Cooperation Agreement with the National Government,” he said.
The proposed reforms, he added, will roll out under the cooperation agreement between the national and county governments. The plan aims to modernize Nairobi’s security infrastructure, expand surveillance technology, and strengthen public safety in Kenya’s capital.
