PHILIP NGUNJIRI Special Correspondent said:
Nairobi holds the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of violence associated with armed robbery in Africa, because of the proliferation of small arms from war-torn Somalia. In 2006, the Kenyan capital was placed ahead of Mozambican cities, which endured years of civil war and the Republic of Congo (DRC), which is still facing rebellion.
A new report with the shocking details was issued last week and is titled: More Slums Equals More Violence: Reviewing Armed Violence and Urbanisation in Africa. It states that Africa ranks high in comparison to other regions on reported rates of urban armed violence.
The situation in Nairobi is, however, informed by the fact that Kenya has over the years hosted the largest number of refugees from Somalia, which has not had a central government since the ouster of the late dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991. The warlords who overthrew the Somalia government turned on each other, leading to the crisis that the war-torn country is still facing. This has led Kenya, which shares a long porous border with Somalia, to suffer one of the worst cases of insecurity with crimes involving the use of firearms proving to be a headache to the authorities. As a result, Nairobi has been at the forefront of efforts to mop up and destroy the arms.
Indeed, the Small Arms Secretariat is based in the Kenyan capital.
The report a joint effort by the governments of Kenya, Switzerland and the United Nations Development Programme will be the subject of discussion during an Africa regional meeting on armed violence and development in Nairobi this week. Along with other reports on different regions of the world, it will constitute annexes to the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development. The Geneva Declaration recognises that the fight against the global scourge of armed violence and the prospects for sustainable development are closely linked.
It therefore calls for efforts to integrate armed violence reduction and conflict prevention programmes into national, regional and multilateral development frameworks and strategies.
The report explores some of the links between urbanisation and armed violence in African context, examining the nature and impact of particular aspects of armed violence such as gun-related crimes and the emergence of criminal gang activity and vigilantism. It also considers possible approaches to reduce urban armed violence, drawing on lessons learned in other regions.
Successive Crime and Victim Surveys undertaken in more than 75 cities between the early 1990s and 2005, revealed that both Latin America and Africa experience the highest rates of robbery and assault. About 13 per cent of all robberies and 9 per cent of assaults are committed with firearms in Africa.
The highest victimisation rates associated with armed robbery in Africa in 2006 were reported in Nairobi (37 per cent), in specific Mozambican cities (27 per cent) and the Republic of Congo (21 per cent).
Large-scale, rapid and unregulated urbanisation has been associated with increased rates of violent crime. The inability of government institutions to keep up with such demographic growth has undermined public safety perception, which in turn complicates the provision of security and justice to citizens. This in turn has led to the growth of predatory gangs, self-defense groups and so-called vigilantes. A characteristic of gang and vigilante violence is that it is responsive to the quality and quantity of public security.
It appears that armed violence is not only aggravated by weak and unprofessional police services but also by their explicit involvement in organised and unorganised criminality. There are many examples of how the formal security sector engages in and perpetrates criminal violence. Examples tend to be anecdotal: Police personnel from Ghana and Nairobi are repeatedly accused of collaborating with criminals, often lending or leasing their own arms and clothing, enabling what are often referred to as pobbers (police-robbers). In Nigeria, a number of soldiers and police officers have been sentenced to death for armed robbery.
Ultimately, any collaboration between formal security and criminal entities even the perception of collusion tends to weaken public confidence in the State.