| dc.description.abstract | This study examines the problem posed by cattle-rustling in Northern Rift Valley region of Kenya CNRV)I. It responds to two critical questions; what political, economic and social factors predispose people in NRV to rustling; and why security institutions in NRV are apparently unable to contain rustling. The study is undergirded by two objectives that examine and analyse the political, economic and social factors undergirding cattle rustling in NRV, and the policy and institutional framework factors underlying the apparent inability to contain cattle rustling in NRV.
The study argues that the state and the citizens relate under an assumed social contract. When the state abrogates, anarchy prevai Is and the citizens individually or collectively seek to satisfy their security needs. Intractable conflict between the individual citizens, groups or sections of the society ensues. Unless the state engages the terms of the social contract in the NRV, cattle-rustling and the associated conflicts will thrive. We recommend that the state respects the peoples' right to participate in decision making and demonstrates statehood to offer the citizens incentives that can neutralise cattle- rustling.
The state can achieve that by first establishing a working security machine that guarantees political, economic and social reproduction. Core to this is the need to establish an indigenous National Guard in NRV as a means to facilitating state penetration in society. Northern Rift Valley region of Kenya, hereafter referred to as NR V comprises the Baringo, Marakwet, West Pokot. Turkana, Samburu . Laikipia districts and western part of lsiolo Districts (see f/lgure 6.2) currently the setting of uncontrolled transhumance and bloody cattle-rustling based conflicts and proliferation of small arms.
Its population includes the Pokot, Turkana, Tugen, II Jamus, Samburu, Rendille, and Boran. In this region are also Kikuyu, Meru and Kalenjin cultivators in Laikipia, Isiolo and Meru districts. The area is about one fifth the size of Kenya, spanning an area of approximately 118042 sq km. The NRV region is therefore about two times the size of Rwanda and Burundi combined. By the 1999, the median year of our period of interest the population of the area was estimated to be 1,630,287 about 4.1 % of the country's population at the time which stood at 39,802,000 people | en_US |
