The coastal region will not move on, it will get out of this bad union

President Uhuru Kenyatta addressing Jubilee Leaders from Coast Region meeting at the Serani grounds, Mbaraki, Mombasa County, October, 2017

Secession talk has been rife lately, with the Coast and Nyanza regions making the most demands. To understand what powers this new drive at the Coast, it is important to go back to history.

On October 8, 1963, present-day Kenya was born following the unification of two nations namely; the Kenya Colony (which is the present-day upcountry Kenya) and the Kenya Protectorate (the present-day Coast region comprising six counties). 

October 8 reminds the people of the Coast of the sad affairs; the grand marginalisation and continuous exclusion from the union, plunder and mismanagement of the local resources by the national government and a deliberate attempt at keeping them away from the very reason of their existence in the State.

Neglect

Various Kenya governments since independence in 1964 have neglected the communities at the Coast. The number of squatters at the Coast and the number of citizens who have never realised the right to property makes the Kenyan constitution sound weird as its aspirations are barely met if the people are really to be sovereign. Last year billions of shillings were paid to up-country Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), forgetting that a squatter at the Coast deserves the same.

At independence, Kenya and the Coast agreed on a Majimbo (Federal) system that would take care of the interests of each unique region.

Majimbo was the spirit and thread that held the union together where every citizen of the union was guaranteed an equitable piece of the national cake. Majimbo was a political expression and representation of the peoples’ aspirations, desires and their sovereignty.

One year after independence, the Late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta staged a constitutional coup and bastardised the union, folded Majimbo and tore apart the agreements made at Lancaster.

Thereafter Mzee Jomo Kenyatta started systemic and systematic plunder and disinheriting the Coast people.

The war of independence was fought on three pillars; Self rule, land ownership, land rights and equitable distribution and management of national resources. Before Kenyans could effectively deal with the issues that led to the independence war and settle down communities to ensure the independence war objectives were met, Mzee Kenyatta caused the first rip-off in the nation's social fabric.

He said our greatest objectives nationally were ignorance, disease and poverty. He forgot that the war of independence had different objectives. Poverty actually caused ignorance and disease and will continue to do so until the issues of equity and justice are addressed.

Land matters

The Coast has never been part of the inclusivity agenda in the management of the Kenya nation. At independence and after the unification, the Coast of Kenya was part of the management of national politics but Kenyatta brought down the curtains on the Coast.

Ronald Gedion Ngala lost his role as leader of Opposition and this began the systemic marginalisation agenda and thereafter Coast was edged out and after Ngala’s mysterious death, things became even worse.

The war of independence was about land. The Kenya colony (upcountry Kenya) got back their land with title deeds to boot after the whites left the white highlands but the Coast remained in the hands of foreigners and neo-colonialists who because they got title deeds from their upcountry lands, used them to get cheap bank loans and bought beach plots  and other huge tracts of lands from the poor coastals and the Arab masters continued to own huge parcels of land.

The resources at the Coast got nationalised and everything went to Nairobi to develop other places as per sessional paper number 10 of 1965. The Coast got a raw deal in the union and that is why it is at the extreme heights of electoral injustice where the will of the people of the Coast has never been respected in the past five elections.

Forgotten citizens

The October 26 election has taught us the lesson that we do not matter in this nation and we shall never ever matter because our electoral power is suppressed and electoral justice is unachievable.

This time around the Coast will not move on but instead it will move out of the union called Kenya. 

The Constitution of Kenya provides a very concrete procedure on how to legally secede and legalises any secessionist ideas. The right to self-determination is a collective right that all people have to determine their destinies.

The right to self-determination is therefore a right held by the people rather than the rights held by the Government alone. The people of the Coast are now ready (more than ever) to exercise this right.

Mr Baya is MP for Kilifi North [email protected]