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Kenyans living in the North Rift region can be forgiven if they feel they are Kenya’s forgotten people. Sixty years after independence, these people have never known peace.

Four presidents have come and gone, making the same promises of finally slaying the ogre of banditry in the North Rift, but they have left the region with the chaos as bad as they found it.

The North Rift has been besieged by bandits, violence and general insecurity. This is a huge region, straddling the counties of  Baringo, Turkana, West Pokot, Elgeyo Marakwet and Samburu.

There is zero development going on in these complete lawless regions as schools have been closed and people cannot undertake any development activities like farming. Livestock are routinely stolen, never to be recovered. Children are out of school, hospitals vandalized and closed.

Many questions have been asked, but the government offers no answers. How can hundreds of cows, sheep and goats stolen by bandits just disappear? Where are they taken? These are animals that can be seen from hundreds of kilometres by air and raise huge dust clouds as they move along. Who finances these bandits?

What are their supply lines and why have the security forces never disrupted them? What is the role of the security forces now permanently stationed in this troubled region? Why are security forces reluctant to use helicopters and follow the bandits when they raid and steal livestock?

What political games are being played here? Residents of North Rift have blamed politicians for fuelling and protecting the bandits, yet the government has been unable to investigate, arrest and successfully prosecute those politicians. Why? These politicians seem to operate with complete impunity

The same government impotence is to be found in the drug menace that has Kenya in its mortal grip.

Kenya is being wasted by drugs and alcoholism especially among the youth. An entire generation is going to waste in the country’s full view. Drug taking, especially in urban centres, is now so prevalent that society has resigned itself to it as insurmountable.

Drug barons are known. In fact, the United States government has even given the Kenya government a report on drug barons in Kenya, but nothing has happened.

Indeed, Kenya has been treated to several circuses involving drugs. What is not in doubt is that Kenya is now a major transit point for drugs, and a lot of those drugs are finding their way into the local market where they are wreaking havoc on the youth.

The government of the US gave Kenya a report on drug barons in the country. Nothing ever came out of it.

Enter President William Ruto.

Ruto is breathing fire and brimstone. He has promised that the North Rift must join the rest of Kenyans in living like normal people, and developing their region.

He has promised that the days of drug dealers are numbered. His enthusiasm and intent is to be lauded and, indeed, encouraged. But the bandits and drug barons have heard it all before!

This is not going to be a walk in the park. The purveyors of violence in the North Rift are well entrenched and have been at this for decades, outlasting four presidents. They will not just walk away.

The fight against the drug barons is another matter altogether. In Mexico and Philippines, where the presidents were elected on an anti-drug platform, they were even forced to call in the army to reinforce the police in this battle. Drug barons are very powerful, awash with cash and part of international cartels. They will not let go of such a “perfect” transit point and market like Kenya without a fight. A big fight.

Unfortunately for President Ruto, he has little option. Either he tackles these two challenges head on, or leaves the presidency at the end of his term like his predecessors- having failed the people of Kenya.

He must walk the talk on banditry and dugs.

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