• Malatit heads to join athletes in commemoration of the slain world champion Agnes Tirop
• Tells Kenyans to stop violence and adopt alternative conflict resolutions
Image: JOSEPH KANGOGO
Retired Baringo chief Joseph Malatit has begun yet another trek for a cause, this time to tell Kenyans to stop killing each other.
Malatit started his three-day 90-kilometre foot-walk to Eldoret to tell Kenyans to stop killing each other.
The road trek is called 'Agnes Tirop', after the slain world athletics champion.
Malatit began on Wednesday at 6.30am at his remote Eron village in Baringo Central.
“I am headed to join the local and international athletes who will turn up for a race to commemorate Agnes Tirop in Eldoret this Saturday,” he said.
Tirop was found murdered in her home in Iten, Elgeyo Marakwet county, in October last year. Her husband fled but was arrested.
Malatit dressed in white dust coat, carried a short beaded club and a white flag bearing the words 'Agnes Tirop Race-Eldoret'. He carried a bag containing a litre of local honey and bottled water.
He will become the first person to brave Rift Valley's dreaded rocky terrain and the high altitude of the Elgeyo escarpment connecting Iten and Eldoret towns to Western Kenya.
“My walk is aimed a sensitising fellow Kenyans to embrace peace and alternative conflict resolutions to avoid human violence leading to bloodshed,” he said.
Malatit broke his first record in September last year after finishing 354km to Nairobi, hoping to raise funds to complete the stalled Kabarnet Stadium in Baringo Central.
The former retired Kimoso assistant chief started his 11-day walk from Eron village on August 24 and finished on September 6, 2021.
He was headed to meet President Uhuru Kenyatta in the State House and the Baringo-born National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) president Paul Tergat.
“My simple message to Uhuru was to remind him, being a close ally of the former President Daniel Moi, he ought to complete the stalled Kabarnet Stadium to be part of his legacy," he said.
He did not succeed in meeting Uhuru or Tergat but he met a Safaricom official who pledged to allocate some money to kick-start reconstruction of the stadium.
The county says there's an ownership dispute about the land.
END BANDITRY
The trekking champion also appeals to the warring pastoral communities in North Rift to end banditry and cattle rustling and coexist in peace.
In the last year, at least 40 people have been killed, thousands of livestock stolen and thousands of people displaced by armed bandits in Elgeyo Marakwet, Baringo, West Pokot, Laikipia and Turkana counties.
(Edited by V. Graham)