NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 6 – Rift Valley Regional Commissioner George Natembeya Tuesday said leaders in Baringo’s Tiaty constituency, Turkana East, and some sections of Laikipia county have failed to help the government’s effort to disarm bandits in the region amid recurring conflicts.
Netembeya, during a presser, said the leaders add no value to the national government’s operation to disarm civilians even as he urged them to keep off the operation.
“These bandits are like spoilt brats, they ask for whatever they want and cannot be told anything. We have a leadership vacuum in the region, we have failed to disarm the bandits,” he said.
“Those leaders, we have established have no value. We are urging them not to go there because they will hinder our operation,” Natembeya added.
He said due to the poor leadership, bandits in the region continue to thrive noting that nearly every family in the region is armed.
“Our main aim is to recover arms, we don’t know the exact number of arms in the regions because we don’t have records since they are acquired illegally through porous borders,” the regional commissioner said.
At the same time, Natembeya said the government will re-impose a dusk-to-dawn curfew and install roadblocks in the affected regions as it launches a coordinated operation.
“Our main aim is to recover arms from Kenyans living in those regions. These roadblocks help us to limit movement into and out of these regions and the curfew will enable us to deploy adequate security personnel during the operation,” he added.
He said the operation will end when the government has achieved its objectives in the region.
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