From the day he spoke during a thanksgiving service in Nakuru on Sunday on the reality surrounding the banditry menace in the North Rift region, Trans-Nzoia Governor George Natembeya has remained relentlessly vocal on how the fight against banditry has been a fool's errand.

During the service, Natembeya did not cower from narrating to President William Ruto the devastating conditions police officers deployed in the banditry-prone regions are forced to endure.

Citing his experience while serving as the Rift Valley Regional Commander, Natembeya said that the fight against banditry has always been masked with a facade that the nation is winning the banditry war, yet bandits are still terrorising North Rift residents and if anything, their numbers increase by the day.

The brazen leader added that he never received any support from the government while at the helm of Rift Valley's security, more reason why he chose to resign from the job.

He added: "It even gets to a point officers are forced to engage in an unholy alliance with the bandits. They give out bullets in exchange for goats so that they can get something to eat. We have really embarrassed ourselves."

On Monday Natembeya reiterated his sentiments but also proposed the approach officers should apply during their ambitious disarmament mission in the region.

He urged security organs to critically scrutinize the situation that awaits them before going ahead with the mission, adding that there should be an alternative provision of sources of livelihood for the communities.

He seemingly became the beacon that triggered the media and the public's antennas to quest for a deeper understanding of the banditry situation in the country.

He started by blaming the leaders from the area for fueling the crisis.

"I looked at the body language of those leaders that the President was addressing today. ¾ of them were fidgeting, that should tell you something. The President was addressing culprits, people who finance this thing were sitting in that meeting," he said.

With a transparent chronicle, Governor Natembeya appeared on Citizen TV, just an hour after being interviewed on NTV, and gave mind-boggling revelations on how the bandits have an upper hand against the Kenyan troops.

Natembeya narrated that there are cartels involved in the cattle-rustling menace who ferry the stolen animals to slaughterhouses in Nairobi and the meat ends up in the local market. He said that "Nairobians are funding banditry in Rift Valley".

Despite his zeal to weed out bandits while commencing his 3-year tenure as RC, Natembeya said his plans were thwarted after there was no support from the government and officers deployed to the region were abandoned.

"When I went to the Rift Valley I said I was going to be the last Regional Commissioner to talk about banditry. I was very enthusiastic and I mobilised all security agencies," he noted.

"All we asked from the government was aerial support and enough fuel for our vehicles and the go-ahead to move in. We divided the North Rift into sectors and my commanders were ready, they said let them die but they die protecting Kenyans. We weren't given that approval,' he noted.

He added that the police welfare is very much compromised that minute things such as the provision of basic needs is being controlled by a few individuals who want to eke out a living at the expense of officers.

"There is no food, officers are given food, it is procured centrally in Nairobi. You buy cabbages in Molo it is taken to the headquarters Gilgil and then transported to Kapedo yet you can get cabbages in Baringo. But there is somebody with invested interest procuring these cabbages. By the time the cabbages arrive in Kapedo they are rotten."

The Trans-Nzoia governor also fingered at former Interior Principal Secretary (PS) Karanja Kibicho who he said did not pick nor return phone calls when he tried to reach him, terming him as a stumbling block in the fight against banditry.

Clearly, Natemeya is willing to take no prisoners in his vivid quest to have the banditry malady addressed and he is ready to lay it all bare so that the same mistakes are not duplicated by the current security body.