President William Ruto’s determination to end banditry is being frustrated by lack of unity and supremacy wars within the multi-agency security team deployed for the joint operation.
The lack of a unified action plan is being blamed for the circus that has become the fight against banditry in an operation that the government launched in February in Baringo, Samburu, Laikipia, Turkana, West Pokot and Elgeyo Marakwet counties.
The forces deployed include formations in the military and the National Police Service. Bandits, however, continue to strike, steal livestock and kill civilians.
“How do you pick a police officer to be an operation commander where the KDF [Kenya Defence Forces] is actively engaged? It will be an outright flop since the soldiers won’t recognise [the police officer],” a military officer told Newszetu.
“We have been deployed from several units that trained individually and for different tasks. How are we supposed to fight together?”
The soldier said that, besides the military, there are officers from the General Service Unit (GSU), Rapid Deployment Unit (RDU), Special Operations Group (SOG), the Special Recce Team (SRT), Anti Stock Theft Unit (ASTU), Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT). There are feelings that the operation is overloaded with assets with fragmented command centres and none trusts intelligence gathered outside its formation.
While the military is known for its incompatibility with other security assets, the Administration Police has a structural rivalry with the regular police, igniting a war of egos.
Further, a culture of greed that seeks to monetise all opportunities for personal gain has been claimed to permeate security organs, with some officers cutting deals with bandits.
Newszetu was told that all these units gather their own intelligence and do not share, while information from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) is treated as unverified as per consumption needs.
Another issue said to be compromising the operation is the payment of allowances, where some formations are paid while others get nothing, breeding resentment.
As the confusion rages, some of the general duties (GD) officers who are occasionally incorporated in the operation are said: “to be busy selling crucial information to saboteurs allied to political camps that would wish President Ruto’s government to fail”.
In the face of all this, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has maintained a straight face, coming out on several occasions to assure the nation that his mission will succeed.
“I will make whatever sacrifices that would require to be made and I will remain focused until this problem is over even if it means moving over to be living in the affected areas,” said Prof Kindiki during his vetting by the National Assembly.
“It is in no doubt that President Ruto is dead serious about this menace. It is not lost to us that Prof Kindiki is also doing all he can to help the president make his numerous threats to bandits sound serious and non-compromising,” a police officer involved in the operation in West Pokot said.
“The problem is that we as junior officers cannot openly tell him what they are getting wrong,” he said.
He added that “words of immense wisdom were uttered by former Rift Valley Regional Commissioner George Natembeya (now the Trans Nzoia governor) on February 12 this year in front of the President to the effect that all was not well and more needed to be done as groundwork before the real operation commenced”.
Kandara police boss Michael Mwaura, who has served in Turkana, said “there are certain [elements of] intelligence that banditry reports lack and that is where the war is being lost”.
“While I was there, I learnt that the raids are coated with a lot of propaganda and falsehoods,” Mr Mwaura told Newszetu, a ding that there are people who would wish the country to believe that there are security officers involved in the banditry menace.
“But even the number of herds stolen is usually exaggerated,” he said, for propaganda purposes. “The highest real figure I came across was that of 300 goats stolen.”
About guns used in the raids, Mr Mwaura said “in some communities, guns are like farm implements where even the kids know how to use them”.
Security officers now believe the advice that Mr Natembeya gave in good faith was ignored.
“You tell these teams that the bandits are holed up here and give the exact coordinates only for them to bomb the opposite direction because bandits already know of the strategies,” Mr Natembeya said.
His words were corroborated by our sources, who intimated that the only way out is for security formations to work together.
“Let them share out these problematic counties—including those affected by terrorism—among the different formations. That will give clarity of command and accountability,” said one of the senior officers.
“Give Pokot to GSU, Baringo to RDU, Turkana to BPU and so on. This will breed competition to emerge the best unit,” he said.
“Let them compete in addressing cattle rustlers, terrorism, highway bandits, crop thefts, cyber crimes, name it. That is when the country will know real reprieve”.
These revelations come in the wake of a March 2, 2023 report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data that says the country faced instability owing to heightened activities of pastoralist militia in 2022.
“The Kerio Valley region — which includes West Pokot, Baringo, and Elgeyo Marakwet, plus neighbouring Turkana and Laikipia counties — and the northeastern counties of Isiolo, Samburu, and Marsabit, among other arid and semi-arid lands, are the areas worst affected,” it reads in part.
The report says the regions have suffered from increasing inter-communal violence involving pastoralist militias in the past year and continue to experience sustained tensions.
“Besides drought that breeds competition over access to limited pasture and water, we have the proliferation of small arms smuggled from neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Somalia as the drivers of violence,” it says.
The report says it recorded 170 incidents involving pastoralist militias in 2022 alone, representing a 139 per cent increase compared to the previous year.
“At least 193 reported fatalities were recorded, with civilian deaths constituting the majority of overall reported cases. Baringo had the highest number of civilian fatalities in 2022 at 27, followed by Elgeyo Marakwet and Isiolo, each with 23,” the report said.
It added that Pokot ethnic militias alone were involved in almost 60 per cent of the banditry incidents where 70 per cent of the violence was meted out on civilians and the remaining to clashes with security agencies.
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