North Eastern residents must stop whining and start winning

Before the advent of devolution, North Eastern had been neglected by successive administrations since independence. Garissa, Wajir and Mandera regions were condemned to decades of underdevelopment and political desertion.

But with devolution, marginalisation is no longer an issue for North Eastern residents. For instance, Mandera received Sh8.9 billion in the 2015/16 financial year, coming third after Turkana and Nairobi counties in fund allocation to the devolved units.

With at least Sh20 billion allocated to the three county governments annually, some development projects have been realised.

The take-off is, however, being threatened by corruption, nepotism and reports of main clans monopolising power. These vices have prevented residents from enjoying improved healthcare, road network, and schools among other social and economic amenities.

For example, a group of Wajir County residents took their governor, Ahmed Abdullahi, to the Senate, accusing him of misappropriating Sh1 billion.

The locals accused the county boss of renting out office space for Sh600,000 monthly. He was also accused of hiring 200 vehicles for county operations at exorbitant prices.

Garissa County is no different. Governor Nathif Jama was accused of irregularly leasing ambulances in the county.

But all is not lost. The electorate must continue being vigilant and hold leaders to account. They also have the powers to replace non-performing leaders by picking committed leaders in the next General Election.

We have an opportunity to govern ourselves at the grassroots and correct all those historical ills.

At the national level, we have to be heard and pursue national policies that are of our interest. Mind you, mortgaging an entire community for a Cabinet position is not what I have in mind.

Besides that being nowhere near a policy, it may have worked in pre-2010 Kenya, but not anymore.

On the political front, we regrettably agree to disagree in many aspects of the subject but it is fundamental that we start agreeing on some basic commonalities if all is not practical yet.

With close to three dozens of political representatives at the national level – I mean representatives from former NEP – we need to see commensurate positive effects of the same at the grassroots.

To achieve this, we need to map out common social service areas and then engage the powers-that-be in addressing them.

In addition, instead of being pawns in the game of politics as does happen in every election cycle, we need to shape it. We may not have the ‘ethnic’ votes that can tilt the game but, like in any other game, there are those who design it while others play it out.

It might sound far-fetched but I nurse the hope of the region spearheading or being the prime pedestal in the formation of Kenya’s political third force and engineering its optimum performance at the ballot box.

We have counties as a fall-back plan and a liberal Constitution that inhibits victimisation. In a nutshell, we better stop whining and start winning. We have no reason to complain since we now control billion of shillings as North Eastern.