Nyamu says he has participated in a number of walks in the country and this is the mega walk he has ever participated in.
“My first walk was from Mombasa to Nairobi, which I owed a lot respect to our police. I was flagged off by one of the police officers who came to my rescue after everybody had refused to flag me off,” he said.
He says he has read widely on wildlife and decided to continue walking to spread the word to the public based on their vague understanding of wild animals.
Nkurinziza Nkurinziza, a Rwandese but was born in Uganda who joined the walk from Mtukura border of Uganda and Tanzania called for a concerted effort among East African leadership to save their wildlife jointly.
“They need to come together, elephants cross over, and they don’t know about boundary lines. It is time the three East African states forge a common stand to save elephants,” he said.
Kisumu County Commissioner Mohammed Maalim who received the team when they paid him a courtesy call urged the team to soldier on with the initiative to change the perceptions and help save the endangered animal species.
Maalim says statistics on the number of elephants in the country are scaring and such walk must be supported to help in reversing the worrying trend.
“Unless we take drastic measures, of course the measures are already in place and it calls upon all Kenyans, Ugandans and Tanzania, because actually we have lost close to 5,000 elephants in a span of eight years as a country. Our brothers in Tanzania are talking of 9,000 in just three years, the Ugandans are talking of 14,500 in a span of thee years, this is alarming,” he said.
According to statistics, in the ‘80s Africa had 3 million elephants in the wild with less than 400,000 remaining.
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