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{
    "id": 666008,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/666008/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 156,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Nakara",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2926,
        "legal_name": "John Lodepe Nakara",
        "slug": "john-lodepe-nakara"
    },
    "content": "saying that those people must be punished harshly so that they can stop practising cattle rustling. We need to come up with some measures so that we can save North and South Rift regions. First and foremost, we must recruit the locals. Some of the security officers who are taken there are not familiar with guns and the terrain of the area. During the wars, they become helpless because they are not familiar with guns. We would like to request the Government to employ the locals who know the terrain, the language and their neighbours. Employing a Form Four leaver as a security officer to just carry a gun is misusing such a person. We need to employ Standard Eight dropouts to be security officers. Form Four leavers will later on advance their studies and become university graduates, after which they will leave their police jobs for greener pastures. If you employ a Standard Eight dropout, he will have nowhere else to go. He will remain in the security force and take the job seriously. That is a measure we need to take into consideration. Hon. Deputy Speaker, we also need to establish socio-economic infrastructure along those corridors. As my friend has said, many victims of cattle rustling are now poor. Those who had many livestock are equally poor. Some of them have gone to urban centres to beg and yet, they were once rich. Because of a single cattle rustling incident, they became poor. We would like the Government to establish socio-economic infrastructure in those areas so that those people can continue living their lives the way they were before. The other measure that needs to be taken is establishing security outposts along our border areas. We have many security officers in Nairobi, Nakuru and other areas where there is no danger at all, unless there are demonstrations. That is the only time when security personnel are used. We need to take policemen in urban centres to where people are suffering. The army in South Sudan follows the people with their livestock. In Uganda, the army looks after their livestock. But in Kenya, military personnel stay in their barracks and enjoy themselves. They are not doing anything. We need our army to be deployed to the border areas. Our people have no weapons like those that are owned by the South Sudan army. When they come for our livestock, we become helpless. Another measure that we need to put in place concerns our leadership. Leadership is a problem. Poor leadership contributes to that menace. As leaders, let us speak the truth. When you protect your community, and you do not tell people that the practice of cattle rustling is bad, it is bad leadership. If you cannot condemn such acts in public, you encourage the communities to continue killing each other. Those who lose elections also use cattle rustling as a way of bringing down those who were elected to office – to show that the elected leaders have been unable to bring the cattle rustling menace down. We need to ensure that leaders are accountable. If you speak about such thing, you must be accountable. Some people just glorify that practice in public. They say that if you do not go to raid, you are not a man. Such a person could even be an elected leader who may want to capitalize on the ignorance of the people to climb up the ladder of leadership. As leaders, we need to condemn that practice and say enough is enough. Our people, especially the pastoralists, listen to us, as their leaders. When you tell them it is bad, they agree and leave it. Finally, as my brother has said, we must make sure that victims of cattle rustling are compensated or they are helped to re-stock to enable them have livelihoods. There are some people in our communities who will never come to urban centres. They are used to their lifestyle of pastoralism. The only way they can enjoy their lifestyle is by having livestock. In those communities, even those of us who are a bit modernized, must have some livestock in order for The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}