That a man armed with nothing more than a bow and arrow could walk across Nairobi’s heavily guarded Dennis Pritt Road and fatally wound a police officer at the gates of State House, one of Kenya’s most fortified installations, exposes a troubling national security lapse.

The shocking incident has now raised unsettling questions about how such a primitive weapon could breach the defenses of Kenya’s presidential residence, a facility guarded around the clock by elite officers. Security observers warn that lapses of this nature are too grave for the country to ignore.