<strong>Bandit Menace in North Rift Kenya</strong>
Baringo, Turkana, and Elgeyo Marakwet counties have for years grabbed headlines for all the wrong reasons; banditry and cattle rustling.
The situation has been a problem for fifty years and has only gotten worse in recent weeks, as bandits wreck havoc, leaving a trail of death, injuries, and theft of livestock.
According to security experts who have had a chance to speak with media say, the driving force behind most of the attacks is cattle rustling, a lucrative business that is believed to be funded by powerful figures that have ensured that the rustlers are well-armed with guns and bullets.
The most recent incident happened hours after Cabinet Secretary for Interior Kithure Kindiki had wound up his tour of the North Rift region with a warning to bandits that they have no place to hide in Kenya.
In the attack, three police officers were shot dead by gunmen believed to be armed bandits in Turkana County.
This was after the CS held a meeting with senior security commanders from Turkana and Baringo counties in an effort to find a lasting solution to perennial banditry attacks in parts of the region.
This has left pundits wondering if Kindiki will succeed in taming banditry in the region where his predecessors have failed. The security situation deteriorated despite a move by CS Kindiki to deploy more than 300 police reservists to boost police officers in the area to stem persistent attacks.
Handlers of the CS, however, maintain that it is during Kindiki’s tenure as security boss that the banditry problem will be wiped out.
A section of the political leaders from the troubled region is however blaming the government for laxity. They have pointed an accusing finger at politicians for fueling the banditry attacks.
President William Ruto has repeatedly warned that the State would crash the bandits who have now become a pain to the residents and by extension the government.
In November last year while distributing relief food in Turkana, President William Ruto warned perpetrators of banditry that the government was determined to bring the matter to an end.
The president said his administration will not hesitate to use the military to bring to an end the perennial problem.
The political class and other influential persons have however been accused of fanning the banditry menace by financing and arming the criminals for commercial gain.
Former Rift Valley Regional Coordinator Governor George Natembeya has outlined the reasons behind the endless bandit attacks in parts of the Rift Valley region as: poor remuneration of the officers in the regions, the lack of access to food which saw the officers forge alliances with the bandits in exchange for goats for slaughter.
With the death toll from banditry having risen to forty in a month, Ruto said yesterday that Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has moved from his office in Nairobi to live in the North Rift region and fight banditry.
Tags: William Ruto Signstv Kithure Kindiki Banditry Editor's Pick
