Stop Sondu clashes before it is too late
By Editorial.Team, October 9, 2023The ethnic skirmishes reported in Sondu are sending a bad message about the lack of cohesion and it is important that the police crack down on the perpetrators as a matter of urgency.
In the past, low-level skirmishes have ballooned into violence and conflagration that consumed large swathes of Kenya. This makes the need to stamp out the re-emerging primitive violence before it becomes the norm.
Kenya is seeking to position itself as an important player in the global scene. It is even set to send police officers to Haiti to pacify the country currently at the mercy of gangsters.
It is, therefore, unconscionable that police officers and other government and security agencies are allowing the low-level ethnic clashes to continue without consequences to the perpetrators.
If the rule of law is to become the norm, rather than the exception to the rule, then security agencies must step in at once to end the skirmishes before the aberration spreads to other regions.
The governors of the two affected counties at the boundaries of which the skirmishes have been reported should also be held to account because they have failed to do enough to stop the violence. If anything, they are perceived to be stoking the fire when they should be seeking a solution.
That the President at the weekend pronounced himself on the matter should compel the police to swing into action to ensure that normalcy is restored in the troubled Sondu region.
It must not be lost on local leaders that Kenya has made big strides towards achieving national cohesion, one of the facets of national life that will be celebrated when the country marks Utamaduni (Cultural) Day tomorrow.
The biggest selling point for Kenya as a nation is that it celebrates the diversity of its people, who, together, make the country what it is. As such, any person, group or outfit that goes against this national ethos and the spirit of Kenya’s Constitution ought to be met with the full force of the law. Why this is not happening in Sondu remains a mystery.
What they should have done by now is to send a strong force to ensure that the right to life is protected and that any persons with disputes, genuine or not, are given an opportunity to speak out freely on condition that no one perpetrates violence.
Kenyan leaders are mature enough to resolve their differences through dialogue. There is, therefore, no place for ethnic violence now or any time in the future.