Banditry is a term that should be added as a surname for nomadic communities.
It all started as an activity of cattle rustling where one community would steal cattle from the other and then the affected community would track down and recover the stolen livestock.
This was thought to be a barbaric culture. It later was turned around by cartelism and rumours have it some rich men turned the situation commercial and started funding the activity.
Now the government is investing a lot of energy in trying to curb the situation and once again the economy is punished and resources are allocated for the wrong purposes.
Every once in a while lives of men and women in uniform and innocent civilians are lost in banditry attacks.
It's about time we get a permanent or at least semi-permanent solution to this because as a country we are past the forward-reverse movement.
The Ministry of Interior should try a different approach.
The usual "operations" seem not to be working and we know that if the formula is repeated often and does not give results then it's time to try a new one.
Imagine if the government decided to move the training grounds for our security forces to the affected places of Kerio Valley, Pokot, Samburu, Turkana and Marsabit, to mention but a few.
Alternatively, if the office of the Interior Cabinet secretary and a few others were relocated to the affected areas to give the CSs a taste of how it is to live in those places, then maybe something will be done.
It's worth noting that the areas affected by famine are the same ones prone to banditry. This means we need to deal with meeting basic needs first and foremost.
In conclusion, if a hungry man is an angry man then let's reduce the anger by reducing the hunger. So let's settle this once and for all and use the resources for other tasks.
