Interior cabinet secretary Prof Kithure Kindiki on Thursday vowed that he would not relent until he crushes the banditry menace in the country.
Addressing the press in Lodwar after he held separate meetings with the county security committee and elected leaders among them four MPs in Lodwar, Kindiki said he would not entertain dialogue with bandits and their sympathizers.
‘If the bandits think we are tired, we have just started. We are seeing the last vestiges of this problem that has troubled us for so long,’ he said.
He added, ‘Going forward we shall see less of these incursions because of the ground and air assets that we are going to employ. We will show no mercy to bandits because the only language they understand is fire and we have enough of it and we are even increasing our capacity,’
He said the government would engage communities in peace building programmes, border to border and county to county engagements to build sustainable infrastructure of peace that will be owned by communities and the people themselves and not security officers.
‘But in the meantime we must crush the aggressors, in fact it is our view that no such discussion should go on until first we subdue the aggressors. You create a culture of impunity when you entertain discussions when the aggressors are attacking others,’ he said.
He said that the government will deploy an additional 468 national police reservists who will be spread across the county in areas where there are security challenges.
He cited Turkana East, parts of Turkana south, Loima, Nadapal, Kibish and Todonyang as some of the areas experiencing security challenges.
While acknowledging that there has been some progress in tackling banditry, Prof Kindiki regretted that 6,800 livestock have been stolen in the county in the last six months. Out of the 6,800, 5,600 livestock have been recovered.
‘I have instructed the county security team to look for the remainder of the stolen livestock and hand it over to the owners,’ said Kindiki.
He added that in the last two months including early this week 2,000 goats and sheep were handed over to their owners but emphasized on 100 percent recovery.
The key solution to this problem is the complete suppression of the bandits, he said.
He added that the government was supporting the security officers by providing them with modern equipment because the government does not want to have casualties among law enforcement officers.
Last week, the CS commissioned armored personnel carriers adding that some of them will be allocated to Turkana County to fight banditry.
He said another consignment of modern equipment including air assets will coordinate with the ground teams.
‘The air assets are armoured so that they are able to carry out kinetic operations from the air and that is the only language that bandits and livestock thieves understand,’ he said.
He urged locals and the leaders to be patient as the government tackles the banditry menace.
He said the government has managed to stabilize the Lodwar-Kitale highway.
At the same time, the CS said the government will operationalize the newly gazetted administrative units of Suguta, Aror and Lokiriama sub counties in the next two weeks noting that Lokichoggio Sub County has already been operationalized.
With regards to 42 Kenyans who were jailed in Uganda, he said the government is engaging with the Ugandan government on a diplomatic level to help release 42 of them.
He at the same time appealed to journalists to be on the same side with the law enforcement and peace and security and isolate the bandits and criminals.
‘The moment the bandits think that we are divided and maybe some people are sympathetic to them, the more they get emboldened,’ he said.
Regarding border disputes, he said the government will take charge of the matter and called for patience from the locals.
He also pledged to allocate more security vehicles to beef up security in the county.
By Peter Gitonga
