A day after an explosive device was thrown into a children’s home in Burat, Isiolo County, killing a child and injuring others, an estimated 200 cattle rustlers struck at Nadome village Baringo County. The rustlers made away with 700 head of cattle and abducted a 12-year-old girl.
There are many things we celebrate in Kenya, but the security of residents, particularly in cattle-rustling-prone areas, is not one of them. The tale of cattle rustling and its destructiveness are the same year in year out, yet no lasting solution seems to be forthcoming.
A group of 200 people raiding a village and driving away 700 head of cattle is not something that can be hidden. It also does not start and end in a couple of minutes.
Given the level of intelligence-gathering our police service is reputed to have, and the much-touted police reforms, one wonders just how the Nadome incident could have happened without the police getting wind of it and acting in time to arrest the situation.
Sadly, and this has been replicated many times. A delegation of high-ranking police officers, perhaps even the Cabinet secretary for Internal Security, will go to Nadome, make speeches, and then forget the matter. A lot has been invested in the police and this needs to be justified. The launch of 525 police patrol vehicles, including armoured personnel carriers, in 2017 aimed to improve police mobility to go after criminal elements.
That has not been vindicated, even as more vehicles for the police service were launched by the CS for Internal Security recently.
Apparently, no lessons have been learned from the 2012 Suguta Valley and 2014 Kapedo massacres in which at least 63 police officers were killed. Attacks and retaliatory raids in these regions go on as if law enforcers have no presence there. Not even visits by the President and security ministers have had any impact.
The deployment of the army in Kapedo towards the end of 2014 made no difference. Inter-clan peace meetings have achieved nothing. The arrest of local politicians suspected to have masterminded some of the atrocities has borne no results. The question is, is the situation in the northern part of Kenya so hopeless?
The security of Kenyans is not negotiable. It behoves the Government to pull out all the stops to ensure that all Kenyans are safe.
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