Interior and National Administration Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki wants an extension of security operations from six Counties in North Rift Valley to Marsabit, Isiolo, and Meru beginning next year.
Kindiki said the operation, ‘Maliza Uhalifu’ will target a notorious corridor along Samburu East, Marsabit, Isiolo, and Meru where disreputable criminals had been stealing animals and killing uniformed officers in pursuit of the culprits.
He urged the Regional Commissioner for Rift Valley Abdi Hassan and his counterpart from Eastern Paul Rotich and their security teams to map out the exact areas along the corridor where the criminals operate from so that the operation could commence at the turn of the year.
“Through the operation, the government will destroy infrastructures of violence and curb the deaths of livestock owners and even the police officers as the criminals full of impunity let loose in the pockets of the region,” Kindiki added.
He warned that the chiefs and other National Government Administrative Officers (NGAO) and the police commanders, failing to work towards ensuring that stolen animals and the crime suspects are handed over to the authorities will be held solely accountable.
He said civilians within the operation areas will have to vacate the locality as the criminals either surrender or face the consequences.
He further said the war against narcotics, terrorism, and cattle rustling had been complicated owing to the fact that the country had not been able to depoliticize security matters for ages.
“Mixing security matters with politics in the country is a threat to the future of the country,” Kindiki said adding that the government was ready to delink security from politics at all costs for the country to be stable.
Cattle rustlers have turned parts of the region inhabitable attacking and robbing locals of their livestock.
For instance, on Christmas Day a mission to recover stolen cows turned tragic when a police officer was shot and killed in a shootout with bandits in Acher’s post area, Samburu County.
The incident happened as a team of police officers tried to recover a herd of cattle that had been stolen from Mutuati area, Meru County, police said.
Constable Victor Kosgey of General Service Unit died on the spot after being struck in the head with a high caliber bullet.
His colleagues said the bullet entered upper side of his eye and burst his rear skull killing him.
He was in the company of other GSU officers who had been sent to trace and recover about 100 cows that had been stolen earlier on from Mutuati.
During the clash, five police vehicles were hit and damaged by the bandits, police said.
Police said the bandits who struck as the team was driving off with some of the recovered animals engaged them in a shootout that lasted more than two hours. On December 29, the cows were recovered and handed over to the security agencies at Posta, Laikipia County for further delivery to the owners at an event presided over by Kindiki.
This is after four of the bandits had been killed in a shootout.
Kindiki said cattle rustling in Northern Kenya has over the years become an organised criminal enterprise responsible for deaths, destitution and displacement.
“Its impacts are severe. It deprives pastoral communities their economic mainstay and aggravates the conditions of poverty in the rangelands, fuelling communal grievances and revenge attacks,” he said.
To dismantle the infrastructure of cattle rustlers and facilitators he said, the government is sustaining the war on banditry and its perpetrators, enablers, benefactors and beneficiaries by making banditry a painful venture, ensuring recovery of stolen livestock and rewarding facilitators of recoveries.
He also rewarded security officers, local leaders and youth whose collaborative efforts realised the recovery.
He said going forward, the government through the Interior Ministry will run a program to financially reward gallant officers and members of the public whose efforts will result in the arrest of the key planners, executors and enablers of banditry whose profiles will be published countrywide in the new year.
