Shabaab now targets jobless disillusioned NYS recruits

When Somalia authorities arrested former Kenyan National Youth Service recruit Stephen Wachira Ngariko in Dhobley last month, questions lingered on the fate of recruits who underwent paramilitary training but were jobless.

The recruits undergo six months of intensive training that mirrors that of disciplined forces in many ways.

Sources have intimated to the Sunday Nation that al-Shabaab has been scouting for NYS recruits across the country who are disillusioned and vulnerable, which makes them easy prey.

TIME-BOMB

Because of the training they undergo in Gilgil, the graduates are better candidates for the terrorist group compared to ordinary young men.

After NYS training, the recruits undergo certificate and diploma courses in various fields before they are released to the public.

In 2014, the National Intelligence Service, said the much-touted NYS reforms were a ticking time-bomb which, if not well managed, could become a threat to national security.

COMPENSATION

In a study believed to have been shared with other government agencies and offices, NIS questioned different aspects of the service, which, it said, could haunt Kenya in future.

The report took issue with high number of recruits, which today stands at 20,000 per intake, and their life after the training.

Though NYS had noted there would be a compensation scheme for the recruits, which would have kept them in gainful employment after the training, the NIS report questioned the sustainability of the programme.

VULNERABLE

The study concluded that most of the graduates were vulnerable and could easily become home-grown terrorists.

Downplaying the danger, NYS Director-General Richard Ndubai told the Sunday Nation that the agency had developed a database to monitor the recruits.

“For a long time, we used to operate like universities where after graduation, you are on your own. Now we have a database of every recruit and we have a partnership with other government agencies. We therefore follow what our former members are doing,” he said.

ISRAELI FIRM

Mr Ndubai added that Mr Wachira was dismissed from NYS training school in 2015 on disciplinary grounds.

He said NYS had also acquired the services of an Israeli company that trains recruits on mindset change and on counter terrorism and anti-radicalisation activities.

“We fully understand that by the time they leave training school, the only thing they do not know is how to shoot. This is why we would like the disciplined forces to be taking our recruits,” he said.

PARADE

When President Uhuru Kenyatta presided over a pass-out parade in Gilgil a month ago, he decried the low number of NYS recruits taken up by the disciplined forces.

Those recruited from NYS are less than 10 per cent, Mr Ndubai said.

He was speaking at NYS headquarters on Thika road.

COURT CASES

Mr Ndubai sidestepped the issue of NYS scandal that rocked the institution three years ago.

“The issues are still in court and until they are finalised we cannot comment. What I know from our end is that there have been changes. We have a new organisational structure. There have been structural changes and this has boosted morale,” he said.

Mr Ndubai also said NYS was equal to the challenge set by the President that it should provide uniforms to the police and the military.