HOW THE GOVERNMENT IS SHOOTING ITSELF ON THE FIGHT AGAINST BANDITRY?

 After some weeks of rest , I have decided to refill my pen with new ink. The ink that I am sure will take me for long weeks or probably months. Many of my urdent readers were pressing me hard to explain to them why the pen a long sabbatical leave. Worry not now , it is refilled with much zeal , gusto , vigor and temerity. For the past few weeks , the mainstream and social media has been awash with a protracted war between the government and the bandits in Baringo, Samburu , Turkana and Elgeyo Marakwet Counties. The bandits had gone a notch higher by lightning fire , staging attacks where people have been killed immediately Interior CS Prof Kindiki Kithure held a security meeting. The recent one the other day was in Baringo where , as the CS was in the middle of the meeting, flanked by top security cadres in the National Police Service and the locals , the bandits lit fire and a white smoke was seen from a distance billowing in a spiral manner into the thin sky. That was a signal from the bandits, daring the government that , the battle lines have been drawn. Savage!!!

But the question which begs an answer is , who are this bandits? What do they want and what really do they champion for? It is good to recollect ourselves to the fact that , this bandits are drawn from the Pokot community. A sub tribe of the Kalenjin ethnic community. Majority of them domicile themselves in West Pokot county and Baringo. Others are scattered in Samburu, Laikipia, Turkana and Elgeyo Marakwet Counties. If we go down the memory lane and as usual, I always say , we cannot Photoshop our Kenya's history. We cannot talk about banditry and fail to mention the former Pokot MP Francis Loile Polis Lotodo. The self proclaimed Pokot nationalist who wasn't shy to propagate and with much vigour, push for his community's interests. He is regarded by many historians in Kenya as the "father of cattle rustling." Lotodo, died in 2000 , 22 years later but he still commandeers that vice from the comfort of his grave. Lotodo ruffled his feathers with the late President Moi both positively and negatively. He was a renegade, a tormentor , an asset and a formidable KANU member at a go.  All pokots , from infants to the elderly, revered him for his courage and temerity especially in pushing for the interests of Pokot people. He was a tribalist per excellent who didn't shy away.  Infact , Pokots love him even at the comfort of his grave for ,"opening their eyes".  By this I mean , he urged them to drop arrows and spears, buy guns and defend themselves from their aggressive neighbors. This neighbors were non other than the Samburus , Tugens , Ilchamus , Marakwets and Turkanas.

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As we speak now , this bandits have wreaked havoc in the Rift Valley especially the Kerio valley and the baragoi areas. In Turkana, this bandits too have been taking lives and stealing hundreds of livestock. What is shocking residents of this troubled areas and Kenyans in general is the nature of their coordinated attacks. They are people who are well organised not like the police but like the military. Sometimes last year before the current Trans Nzoia County Governor George Natembeya resigned from his post of Rift Valley regional coordinator, he released shocking revelations that this Pokot bandits were using M16 rifle which is always used by elite Recce squad, ATPU and KDF special Forces.  The question is , how did this kind of rifle reached in the hands of a bandit holed inside Tiaty or Kacheliba? Just like during the days of Lotodo where politics took a centre stage in aiding the operations of this bandits who believe, no other community should own cattle apart from them (Pokots) . They have managed to create a huge syndicate and enterprise of smuggling stolen cattle in various towns across Kenya for slaughter. Politics plays a huge role here. Just like Prussian war theorist and military genius Carl Von Clausewitz says in his book On War , war is a continuation of political intercourse between states by other means. In this one , banditry is the continuation of politics by other means in this region. 

INTELLIGENCE AND TACTICAL 

This bandits have very sophisticated methods of gathering intelligence information about security personnel deployed in this region to fight them. Let me ask you, how dare can criminals lit fire , few metres from where the goverment is holding a security meeting you plan how to eliminate you? What is that do you know the government doesn't know? This are questions Interior CS Prof Kindiki Kithure should be asking himself. His veiled threats on this bandits is even giving them courage instead of making them to cow. It is giving them more energy to strike and kill inorder to pass a message to him that , they aren't ceasing from what their doing. Time for threats is over. I can recall sometimes back during the campaign season, President Ruto then DP and Kenya Kwanza Alliance presidential candidate accused the former interior CS Fred Matiang'i of orchestrating and engineering this banditry attacks against the Marakwets in Kerio valley inorder to prevent his from becoming the president? Still on the same foot , DP Gachagua threatened and dared this bandits that he will deal with them mundu ku mundu ( one on one) . Immediately after he issued this threats, bandits striked in Turkana and killed several GSU officers. Young souls were eliminated.

This war on banditry will only be won by winning the hearts and minds of the locals where this banditry menace is high. The porous border between Uganda and KENYA where the Pokots flee and joins their counterparts in Uganda, the Karamojong, who sometimes back , weren't see eye to eye with this Pokots. To survive and protect their cattle rustling empire, they had to make peace with the Karamojongs. The plain nilotes of Uganda whose Economic activity is primarily pastoralism. Today, you cannot walk in Marigat town or Maralal or Ol Moran or in Tiaty and point out a bandit. They don't have unique features to identify them. They are husbands and fathers. Their children and wives attends this security meetings. They do so without fail. This is where they gather intelligence information and wire it to their husbands for tactical preparedness and strategy crafting. That's why , inorder for the government to win this war , it should do away with this kind of meetings. The government cannot be using the taxpayers money to organize for meetings geared towards aiding the bandits with Intelligence information. Again, every resident in this area should be treated as a suspect but the government should not let this be known by the locals. Social corporate responsibilities should be heightened in this area. More social and economic services should be channelled in this region. The only way to win a war isn't  to load you AK 47 or G3 rifles with bullets but to win the hearts and minds of the locals who houses this bandits.

By doing so , the security personnel who have been trained and adapted to the environment and topography of this region should be the ones who are mandated to run this kind of operations. You cannot take an AP or GSU from Kawangware or Eastleigh or fresh from Embakasi and take them to fight bandits in Tiaty, Ol Moran , Samburu or Turkana. That will be akin to telling this officers to commit suicide. Operations of this nature don't warrant the government through the cabinet secretary in charge to always give threats. Those threats aren't working against the bandits but the goverment itself. Kenyans should be receiving news of how goverment is annihilating and obliterating the bandits and not how it is issuing threats.