The pattern of cattle rustling and banditry has always been the same. Armed men with smuggled guns raid villages to steal livestock.
They kill and maim the livestock owners, including their children, and disappear into the dense thickets in the Rift Valley leaving behind death and destruction.
As soon as the news of the raid spreads, the government swings into action, promising disarmament. Sometimes the government follows through, but with the instability in the Horn of Africa, which allows the proliferation of illicit guns, the bandits rearm and strike again.
For years, the raids and counter-raids had been cloaked in culture and tradition, but there's an economic, commercial angle fuelling the raids. Aside from the thriving underground demand for cheap stolen livestock sold at a huge profit in the urban abattoirs in Kenya’s cities, there’s also local communal politics.
Interior CS Kithure Kindiki has promised to extend the war against banditry to financial beneficiaries and funders of the cattle theft. He is on record stating that, in his tenure, banditry and cattle rustling will be a very painful and expensive venture.
And this should be the case, because the stolen livestock ends up in your plate as beef or mutton, with obvious financial returns to those behind the rustling.
Once the vein of financing and commercial benefit is cut, banditry and cattle rustling will cease being a lucrative economic activity.
Against this backdrop of a deadly mix of blatant crime, geopolitics, local ethnic politics, and outdated cultural practices, previous administrations kept flailing about, talking tough and carrying out sporadic disarmament. Yet, the cattle rustling and banditry thrived.
Now, CS Kindiki is tasked with routing the bandits and ending the menace once and for all. His boss, President William Ruto, wants results.
“We will end this issue of banditry in our country…na siyo tafadhali (there is no negotiation about it),” Ruto said earlier and restated his message during the passing out parade for Administration Police officers in Embakasi, Nairobi, on Wednesday.
He added, “The time has come for us to decisively engage to eradicate banditry and cattle rustling within our borders. I am confident our police officers have what it takes to execute this critical assignment.”
“I have given firm instructions to the Interior ministry to support all our men in uniform to ensure we eradicate banditry and cattle rustling.”
Prof Kindiki, a human rights lawyer and legal scholar, is known for his meticulous approach to tough assignments. He operates like a submarine, only surfacing when the job is done. Alongside other lawyers, he worked on the cases at the International Criminal Court, where Ruto and former President Uhuru Kenyatta were battling for their lives. The cases collapsed.
He was Ruto’s chief presidential agent in the heady days of the 2022 general election. He guarded the votes at the tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya, and in the end, Ruto was declared President after a tight electoral contest.
But this new role, as the crime-buster, is different.
Unlike his predecessors, he doesn’t talk tough, with fire and fury. He speaks calmly, as he studies the situation, and then he strikes with precision. He did it to quell the runaway crime in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital late last year. Now, the bandits and cattle rustlers are in his crosshairs.
Since his appointment at the end of October last year, he has been meeting leaders from the banditry and cattle rustling hotspots in the counties of Turkana, West Pokot, Samburu, Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Isiolo, Marsabit, Kitui and Laikipia.
His style, the Star has established, will involve a mix of old and new strategies — including disarmament and rearming of the National Police Reservists. He is also focused on intelligence collection to understand and disrupt the criminal and commercial networks that sustain the banditry.
“The decision to withdraw the nearly 10,000 reservists abruptly and without basis has caused great loss of innocent lives and deprivation of property,” Kindiki previously said.
He had promised to hire police reservists in specific hotspots. Already, 300 of those have been deployed, and the hiring of more is underway.
Kindiki also mentioned “air and land assets” as part of his arsenal. Specifically, he wants to step up aerial surveillance to identify the hideouts of the bandits and cattle rustlers, to allow the security agencies to mount targeted operations to recover stolen animals and arrest the culprits.
Richard Tutah, a security expert, said banditry is a system that can only be ended by disrupting the networks that make it thrive. They include the theft of animals, the financing of arms acquisition, the transportation of stolen animals to markets and the markets for stolen animals.
"The animals once stolen are not airlifted but driven to a place from where they are transported. Where do they find their way to? Study the entire system to tell exactly where to disrupt," Tutah said.
He added, “The moment there is no market or transportation, rustling becomes a thing of the past. It is no longer the cultural rustling alone, there's a business element. The business element finances the menace.”
Elgeyo Marakwet Woman Representative Caroline Ngelechei told the Star that crushing cattle rustling was delicate, and needed strategy, not the old tactics of brute force.
“There is some hope…the new administration inspires hope but the tactics to be used must be well thought-out,” Ngelechei said.
She said in the short term, more police officers should be deployed to the region. The government should bring all the machinery including helicopters and do thorough disarmament, she said.
“We want officers committed to this cause, not those who perpetuate laxity. We will discourage the actors if we nab these criminals. We can’t have a situation where criminals who have been identified roam free. No one is in prison over cattle rustling,” the lawmaker added.
Ngelechei added that in the medium term, the government should open up the area “so that both communities can do business, interact”.
“For the long term, the government needs to put up security roads for speedy response. We also need to develop other areas … build more schools,” the MP said.
Security expert George Musamali said the initial steps by the Kenya Kwanza team aren’t convincing yet.
“You cannot to use the same method of doing something and expect different results. What they call new steps are the same old tactics that we have used for ages and failed,” he said.
The expert added, “We need to move from using tactics and use strategy. We are trying to navigate banditry in North Rift using a broken compass. It can't work.”
The Star has established that in the works are intelligence-led operations aimed at nailing all the players in the value chain. The long-term plan is to open up the region for economic growth, expand the infrastructure and address resource inequalities, which also fuel the raids.
But first Kindiki has to silence the guns. Already, several military and police camps are being set up in the area for security. Once the guns turn silent, the communities will get down to building their counties, investors will come.
That has been the plan of his predecessors. Now he has Ruto’s support. Will he succeed? Only time will tell.
(Edited by V. Graham)
