The Government has directed parents in the troubled Laikipia West Constituency even as residents took to the street to protest over rising cases. On Monday, Laikipia West Sub – County Deputy County Commissioner Hezron Nyamberi and his Nyahururu Sub-County counterpart Moses Murwoki said that parents who had withdrawn their children in schools should make sure that they have returned them back to school. Learning activities in five schools among them Wangwachi Primary school, Mirango primary school, Bondeni Primary school, Kabati Primary school and Kabati mixed secondary school all in Laikipia West constituency had been paralyzed due to incessant banditry attacks and livestock thefts in the area.
While assuring both teachers and students of their safety, Mr Nyamberi said that security personnel would be deployed in the affected learning institutions. He told parents during a meeting at Wangwachi Primary school that police officers will be deployed at the school to ensure that the students were safe. The DCC said that the security officers will be conducting regular patrols at the schools and areas surrounding them to ensure that both the teachers and learners were safe. Amaya Triangle Director Nyaguthii Wahome accused herders from the neighboring counties of Baringo, Samburu and Isiolo of disrupting lesening in the region.
She said that the motive of AmayaTriangle Initiative brings together four Northern Kenya counties among them Laikipia, Samburu, Isiolo and Baringo was formed to help ensure that there was coexistence in the region but regratted that some counties had refused to foster peace among their residents. In the neighbouring Nyahururu sub county, thousands of people held protests at Kinamba Township in protest of the rising cases of insecurity in the region. Angry parents had earlier in the morning stormed Or Arabel primary school, Ndindika primary and secondary school and Mbogoini primary where they withdrew their children before heading to the streets where they engaged police in running battles. Area MCA Peter Thomi and residents accused police of lobbing teargas and using live bullets to disperse angry residents who had gone to air their grievances at the Deputy County Commissioner offices.
On Sunday Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) and Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) have threatened to withdraw their members from the affected areas over insecurity. This is as tension remains high in the region especially in Ol Moran, Githiga and Sossian wards following days of bandit attacks and counter operations to flush out armed bandits at the Laikipia Nature Conservancy at the border of Baringo and Laikipia counties and Loisaba wildlife Conservancy at the border of Samburu – Laikipia – Isiolo counties. On Saturday morning a General Service Unit (GSU) Inspector was shot dead after they were ambushed by bandits while they were patrolling the volatile Laikipia Nature Conservancy. The killing of the senior GSU officer came a day after another civilian was shot dead by armed bandits on Saturday. The 37-year old man identified as Martin Kingori Njeri who was riding on a bicycle along the Laikipia Nature Conservancy cut-line security road was fatally shot by the unknown number of bandits hiding inside the vast Conservancy.