Killing livestock should never be part of security operations

Samburu Governor Lati Lelelit and residents at the Losesia grazing area, where livestock was killed by police officers. [Bruno Mutunga, Standard]

The North Rift region has buried chiefs, officers and children for over a decade, from Baragoi to Samburu-Isiolo borderlands. Firm action against banditry is justified and necessary. No Kenyan should oppose an operation to recover stolen livestock and illegal firearms.

But the security operation in Waso Ward, Samburu East, from September 19, forces a hard constitutional question: When does legitimate security become collective punishment of the innocent?

On September 28, this crisis was described on X as not just a security operation, but an animal welfare crisis. The post noted, "You cannot restore security by punishing innocent livestock. We need rules of engagement that protect both people and animals." That framing captures the reality residents of Losesia and Nolng'erdeed are now living.

The facts are now before Parliament and are not in dispute. Following attacks along the Samburu Isiolo border, including an attack in Gotu where bandits killed two Anti-Stock Theft Unit officers, a police reservist and two civilians and stole police firearms, a multi-agency team of GSU and ASTU was deployed to Samburu East. The objectives were to recover livestock stolen from Isiolo and remove illegal firearms.

Yet what residents reported was starkly different. Instead of recovered Isiolo livestock and arrested bandits, they counted carcasses in their manyattas. Samburu Senator Lelegwe Ltumbesi told the Senate that 415 goats and 102 cattle were shot dead at Losesia and Nolng'erdeed between September 19 and 21, with two residents shot and wounded. Samburu East MP Jackson Lekumontare put the figure higher at more than 700 goats, 500 cattle and several donkeys, a figure yet to be independently verified. Even using the lower Senate figure of 517 animals, the loss is devastating.

This is where law, governance and leadership intersect, and why the operation must be interrogated beyond press statements.

Legally, the operation raises serious constitutional concerns. Article 40 protects the right to property. For a pastoralist family, livestock is not hobby farming. It is a bank account, school fees, hospital bill and food security combined. Article 28 protects human dignity and Article 19 is clear that rights belong to each individual. The Constitution does not permit punishing innocent families in Waso for crimes committed by armed groups who, by police intelligence, use Malaso and Kur Kur valleys as their operational base to detect officers from a distance.

The principle of proportionality under the National Police Service Act requires that force be lawful, necessary and not excessive. Where is the proportionality in shooting 517 verified animals when not one bandit was reported arrested and not one stolen animal was reported recovered? When proportionality fails, an operation ceases to be security and becomes collective punishment, prohibited by law.

There is also the statute we often forget in security debates, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, Cap 360, and the Animal Welfare and Protection Act, 2023. Section 3 criminalises causing unnecessary suffering to animals. Shooting goats, calves and donkeys that carry water for households is not collateral damage. It is cruelty under our laws and it betrays the pastoral economy that security operations are meant to protect.

From a governance perspective, the operation reflects failure on four core principles.

First, participation. Article 1 says sovereign power belongs to the people. In pastoralist areas, security only succeeds through community partnership. Lelelit supported the operation in principle but criticised its execution, saying it resulted in severe human rights violations and indiscriminate killing of livestock. That statement from a county chief signals that community intelligence was bypassed in favour of coercive force.

Second, accountability. Residents have petitioned the National Assembly to summon Inspector General Douglas Kanja to explain authorisation, command structure and rules of engagement. Who authorised the shooting of livestock? Who will compensate families under Article 23 and the Victim Protection Act? Devolution was meant to bring government closer, not make it harder to get answers when livelihoods are destroyed.

Third, effectiveness. Leaders from Meru have told Parliament they lost close to 20,000 cattle and 300 people to bandits from Isiolo and Samburu in five years. That pain is real and justifies firm action. But action must be intelligence-led. Samburu is part of the North Rift Economic Block, one of six counties under Maliza Uhalifu North Rift. If bandits use Malaso Valley as a base, resources must be directed there, not on the grazing fields of Waso. Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has now directed agencies to exercise greater caution and distinguish between armed criminals and innocent residents. That directive is an institutional admission that something went wrong.

Fourth, leadership. Leadership theory differentiates coercive power from legitimate authority. Coercive power relies on guns. Legitimate authority relies on trust, intelligence and community networks to target the actual criminal. Transformational leadership requires contextual intelligence, understanding the socioeconomic system you operate in. In Samburu East, a goat is a girl's education and a family's dignity. Destroying the social capital that makes a mzee share information about movements in Malaso.

To restore confidence, four steps are urgent. One, immediate independent documentation by KNCHR, IPOA and State Department for Livestock of the livestock lost using Senate figures as baseline. Two, prompt compensation where unlawful destruction is established. Three, a public report on why Waso was targeted when intelligence pointed to Malaso. Four, mandatory retraining of units deployed in ASAL areas on pastoral economy and community policing, with clear rules of engagement that protect both people and animals.

Security that kills livelihoods is not security. It is poverty creation at gunpoint. The operation must be corrected, not defended. The goats of Waso cannot speak in court. But the Constitution speaks for them, and it demands that security be both firm and just.