Stop fighting and marry our girls, MPs tell cattle raiders

Nandi County woman rep Zipporah Kering (left) and nominated Senator Agnes Zani arrive at Turkwell Gorge in West Pokot County for a peace meeting with the Turkana and Pokot communities on June 21, 2015 . The two are members of the parliamentary committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity. They told the villagers to stop the conflict over cattle. [PHOTO: ALPHONCE SHIUNDU/STANDARD]

Women MPs have promised illiterate young raiders “young beautiful wives” in exchange for them to stop the age-old practice.

It was one of the solutions the MPs threw at the warriors, raiders and elders of the communities in the cattle-rustling belt of northern Kenya, if only to save lives and lure investors to help lift the struggling communities out of poverty.

From Turkwel Gorge in West Pokot, Nginyang’ and Loruk in Baringo to Turkana, the politicians looked at inter-marriage as one of the ways to have the warriors drop their guns and embrace peace.

It did not puncture the lawmakers’ hopes that one of their colleagues, Alois Lentoimaga of Samburu North, had a wife from the Turkana community, yet the Samburu and Turkana are engaged in a vicious territorial fight in Samburu County.

“I have your daughter, what is the problem? We are in-laws,” said Lentoimaga at a meeting between Turkana and Samburu leaders where a ceasefire was brokered with the help of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC).

Senators Agnes Zani (nominated) and Zipporah Kering (Nandi) revealed to the young men in West Pokot and Baringo that they might just get their daughters if they stop the cattle raids that have crippled the economy of the area.

Adult education

“I have a very beautiful 23-year-old daughter. She got a man from here. Do you want her to come and find you people fighting? Please stop the conflict so that when she comes, she will find a peaceful home,” said Zani, who spoke in Nginyang’, Baringo County.

The meeting was mainly attended by the people from the Pokot community, their main complaint was that the government had ignored their plight.

It was the same message from Kering’ when she met young men from the Turkana and Pokot communities in Turkwel Gorge and in Nginyang’.

“You, the men of Pokot, are earthly gods. You are gentlemen. You are very courageous. You are the dream of every woman, but please stop the fighting. No woman wants to be a widow,” she said.

She then scanned the crowd for the women. They were there, but a few had children on their backs. The girls were not pregnant. “It looks like women are afraid to get pregnant because they do not know where to hide when the fighting begins,” said Kering’.

The women MPs were out to encourage intermarriage. A day earlier in Turkwel Gorge, Kering said that when she was still a “hot single girl”, she’d have married a man from the Pokot community.

“I would not have cared if he was Pokot or Turkana, I’d have married any of them,” she said. The crowd roared in laughter.

In Nandi, she said, intermarriage solved fights between the Luhya and Nandi communities.

“We had a similar problem. But Luhyas married Nandi women and Nandi’s married Luhya girls... As a mother of girls, one married to a Pokot and one a Turkana, do you want me to release them while you are still fighting?” she posed.

The Deputy County Commissioner of Baringo East Daniel Kurui said the two communities intermarry, but when it comes to cattle raids, life goes on —raids and counter-raids. “Many Tugen girls are married in Pokot land, but very few Pokot girls are married in Tugen land. The Pokot demand a very high bride price for their daughters,” said Kurui.

The MPs want the Penal Code amended to make sure that cattle-rustling is deleted from the statutes and the offences replaced with “murder, arson and rape” so as to have harsher punishment.

To solve the education problem, the MPs are mulling on an adult education campaign for the parents.

These were brilliant speeches, beautifully delivered, and excellently translated to the communities under the tree meetings. Is it the beginning of something phenomenal, or is it just one of those things that keep people busy?