• He said that public participation has to happen and the government needs to talk to these communities not kill their people.
• On Sunday, the government ordered the evacuation of residents of 27 spots believed to be bandits’ hideouts by end of Monday.
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Wiper party deputy secretary general Dan Maanzo has termed the Interior CS performance in the North Rift as dismal and terrible.
Speaking in an interview with Citizen TV on Tuesday, he said that giving the Northern Rift communities 24 hours to move, is unconstitutional.
“You cannot give families 24 hours to leave. Public participation has to happen. The government needs to talk to these communities not give them a 24-hour ultimatum. That is unconstitutional and it interferes with the rights of those people,” said Maanzo.
“You cannot really move and transfer people like that and there are schools, children. It’s a very bad decision.”
The senator also questioned the agility of the government to deal with the bandits who have been torturing people living in the North Rift.
“How can a government fail to have serious intelligence from this community? Fail to know who the masterminds are? Fail to even deal with the terrain,” asked Maanzo.
He added that the government ought to have a talk with the leaders of the area and find a solution to the ongoing incidents in the Northern Rift.
“The government is doing a very big mistake by failing to do one important thing. Meet all the members of parliament from that region and get a solution from them,” he said.
“This is a historical problem. The government for many years fails to embrace these communities. They are not in the army; they are not in the police force; they are treated as not people in this country,” Maanzo said.
This comes after the government ordered the evacuation of residents of 27 spots believed to be bandits’ hideouts by end of Monday, further hinting at the start of forced disarmament to rid the North Rift of illegal guns.
CS Kindiki issued the order on Sunday in a statement laced with undertones that the government could be gearing up to take the month-long operation a notch higher.
Kindiki said the evacuation order followed after the government determined that armed criminals were hiding at the bottom of gorges, escarpments, caves, ravines, hills and forests.