Editor’s note: In this opinion piece, Kimutai Kirui claims that from Kesses to Cheptiret or Kondoo, and from Tarakwa to Naiberi, police officers can be moved without ever leaving the same operational corridor. Kirui observes that behind the routine paperwork of police transfers lies a deeper allegation: reshuffling commanders changes locations but leaves the networks accused of enabling crime and political muscle largely intact.
At the station level, repeatedly invoking the name of a senior officer without justification is not harmless name-dropping. When the officer keeps his position, the claim acquires something more powerful than evidence: repetition.
Repetition breeds credibility. Credibility breeds fear. Fear silences scrutiny. Eventually, an unverified claim can harden into accepted fact.
That is how a name becomes a shield. Say it often enough. Invoke it boldly enough. Stay entrenched long enough. Eventually, people stop asking whether the protection is real—and start behaving as though it is.
That is the real danger: not just the possibility of protection, but the power of making people believe protection exists.
We distance DIG Eliud Lagat from any bragging or name-dropping by CI James Lenaso.
The hidden posting economy
The problem may not be at the top. It may be in the price of a posting.
Allegations of bribery, commercial influence, and political connections point to a parallel economy within parts of the police posting system, where lucrative stations can allegedly be secured or retained through personal networks.
The result is a revolving door that changes the paperwork without necessarily changing the ground.
Eldoret Police Station to Jua Kali. Kesses to Kondoo. Kondoo to Cheptiret.
Then back to Jua Kali.
Different stations. Same operational terrain. Same commercial corridors. Same networks.
This does not necessarily implicate the President, the IG, or the DCI, or even the CS Interior.
The alleged manipulation can occur lower down the chain, beyond the immediate visibility of senior commanders.
Some officers are alleged to pay to secure or retain lucrative postings.
Where stations sit astride commercial activity, transport routes, land transactions, or illicit economies, a posting can become an asset—and a transfer merely a relocation of that asset.
The order changes. The network doesn’t.
The question is simple: how many transfers actually dismantle a network, and how many merely move the same player within it?
The 15-year pattern: Transfer without exit
Transfers come and go. Some officers, however, are alleged to remain effectively untouchable—shielded by powerful connections, considered too useful to the system, or too deeply embedded in the terrain to be permanently removed.
How does an officer remain within the same operational ecosystem for up to 15 years, moving between stations without ever truly leaving the area?
Over time, postings can become networks. Officers accumulate relationships with businesses, informants, colleagues, and power brokers, creating influence that survives individual transfers.
Some are also alleged to invoke the names of senior officials, including DIG Eliud Lagat and Felix Kosgey, claiming access or protection at the highest levels.
Whether those claims reflect genuine connections or are simply used to intimidate colleagues and subordinates is a matter that warrants scrutiny.
Fifteen years in the same operational terrain is not a routine posting pattern—it is a potential concentration of influence that demands scrutiny.
An officer can move from Eldoret Police Station to Jua Kali or from one station to another nearby, yet never really leave the same ecosystem.
The concern becomes more serious where allegations repeatedly place the same officers at the scene or in the immediate response chain whenever major or economic crimes occur in the same area.
The central question is stark:
When an officer can be transferred repeatedly yet remain entrenched in the same operational terrain for 15 years, is it really a transfer—or simply a change of address within an entrenched system?
Transfers without exit
The problem is compounded by how police transfers are handled.
When sub-county and county commanders are transferred, the underlying operational networks can remain intact.
Officers are often moved from one station to another—or from a station to a police post—without leaving the same area of influence.
For instance, in Eldoret, a sub-county commander is transferred out while officers overseeing key operations are moved to Cheptiret, Kondoo, or another nearby station.
An officer transferred out of Kesses may instead be posted to Tarakwa or Naiberi Police Station in Ainabkoi, still along the same highway and operational corridor.
The allegation is that such movements can preserve the same interests and cartels rather than dismantle them.
Instead of breaking established networks, transfers can simply rearrange the same personnel within the same geographic area.
Officers remain strategically positioned along the same highways, routes, and areas of influence.
In the case of CI James Lenaso, a transfer from one station or sub-county to another would therefore not necessarily disrupt networks allegedly associated with him if he remains within the same operational zone.
The broader concern is that transferring commanders without dismantling the underlying structures risks creating the appearance of reform while leaving the system essentially intact.
Why is keeping one officer in one particular terrain so politically important?
The Turbo question
CI James Lenaso is one such example. Another is an officer identified as Onyango in DCI Kesses, who is said to have worked across almost every police station and post in Kesses and Tarakwa, Ainabkoi—building a footprint across the same operational corridor.
Lenaso’s own trail is difficult to ignore: Kiambaa in Kapseret, Deputy OCS and later OCS in Eldoret, Jua Kali, Turbo, Baharini, and Kabiyimiet.
Yet Turbo is where the resistance to transfer becomes particularly striking.
Why Turbo?
Will he die if he leaves? Is a transfer a death sentence he fights to stay?
What is it about this sub-county that makes leaving so difficult?
What interests are tied to this particular patch of ground?
And why, despite the routine movement of officers, does the same operational terrain continue to draw the same personnel back into its orbit?
The timing raises an even more pointed question. With the 2027 political contest approaching and nomination day likely to be consequential in the gubernatorial and senatorial races, what strategic value does retaining an officer like Lenaso in Turbo offer?
Because when an officer spends years moving within the same corridor, a transfer can become little more than a change of station name.
The address changes. The network stays. And when nomination day arrives, the question will be who already controls the ground.
2027 political ball game: The Lenaso matrix
The 2027 elections are still months away, but in Uasin Gishu, the ground game is already taking shape.
Allegations surrounding the security establishment raise questions about who controls it.
At the center of those allegations is CI James Lenaso, who is alleged to have built significant influence around Eldoret CBD and the wider political terrain of goons.
He is alleged to have worked closely with the county inspectorate and enforcement and, by extension, goons affiliated with Jonathan Bii.
His continued presence could become particularly consequential during the 2027 party nominations, especially in the gubernatorial and senatorial contests where control of the ground can be politically decisive.
The nomination day question
The allegation is blunt: Governor Jonathan Bii wants CI James Lenaso retained until after 2027 because he is considered strategically useful at the most important stage of the political battle—the party nomination.
In Kenya, winning the general election begins with winning the party ticket.
A governor or MP cannot reach the general ballot unless they first survive the nomination process.
Nomination day is therefore not a rehearsal; it is the first election.
That is where the alleged Lenaso equation comes in.
Lenaso is alleged to have influence over networks of goons operating around Eldoret CBD and the wider Uasin Gishu political terrain.
He held a meeting with goons at night this week.
Such networks provide political actors with an advantage when nominations become contested, particularly in tightly fought gubernatorial and senatorial races.
The issue, therefore, is not simply why one police officer wants to remain in Turbo.
It is why his presence in that particular operational terrain matters so much ahead of nomination day.
The political mathematics is brutally simple:
Win the nomination. Get the party ticket. Get onto the general-election ballot.
And if control of the ground is part of that equation, the question surrounding Lenaso becomes impossible to ignore:
Who benefits from keeping him exactly where he is when the nomination battles begin?
Behind the alleged arrangement is a personal assistant to Onesmus Murkomen, accused of acting as a political conduit and advancing interests within the system.
But Lenaso is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.
Uasin Gishu has repeatedly attracted concerns over goons, fraud, illicit alcohol, ethanol, drugs and economic crime. Allegations have also surfaced that sections of these networks enjoy assistance, protection, or tolerance from public officials—including individuals within the police and land administration.
Then there is the political shield.
Some individuals allegedly invoke the names of the president and senior government figures to demonstrate influence, discourage scrutiny, and signal that certain networks are protected.
If substantiated, this is not simply a story about police transfers or one officer’s posting.
It is a story about the machinery beneath the ballot: who controls the streets, who controls the networks, who provides protection—and who expects to cash in when the 2027 political battle begins.
In that matrix, the question surrounding Lenaso is brutally simple:
Why is keeping him in that particular terrain so politically important?
Over to you, the National Police Service (NPS), Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), and Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).
The author is Kimutai Kirui, a Kenyan political analyst and human rights activist known for his work in Uasin Gishu County, where he has championed justice in cases ranging from police brutality to land disputes affecting widows.
Views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the editorial position of news9.africa.
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