Inside Kenya's battle to stop 'goons and guns' as fears of political violence grow

Kenya's security apparatus is scrambling to contain a resurgent wave of political violence ahead of the 2027 general election cycle, with intelligence officials warning that well-funded criminal networks are already being mobilised across key battleground counties.

Senior officials from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the National Intelligence Service have briefed parliamentary committees on what they describe as a deliberate recruitment drive targeting idle young men in urban informal settlements, particularly in Nairobi's Mathare, Kibera and Mukuru estates. Sources familiar with the briefings say politicians with access to campaign financing are funding the process through intermediaries, making direct attribution difficult.

The pattern is not new to Kenya. Since the restoration of competitive multiparty elections in 1991, successive electoral cycles have seen organised violence erupt in the Rift Valley, Western Kenya and the coast. The post-election crisis of 2007 to 2008 killed more than 1,300 people and displaced hundreds of thousands, leaving a trauma that continues to shape how security planners approach each subsequent vote.

Civil society organisations, including the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, are calling on the Director of Public Prosecutions to move pre-emptively against identified instigators rather than waiting for violence to materialise. They point to provisions under the National Cohesion and Integration Act, which criminalises incitement along ethnic lines, as an underused legal instrument.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has publicly committed to deploying additional officers to volatile areas but has stopped short of naming specific politicians under investigation. Critics argue the government's response remains reactive, and that without prosecutions that reach senior political figures, the cycle of hired violence will simply repeat itself when campaign season fully opens.