Kenya as the weakest link in Lapsset project

Lamu, currently the smallest county in Kenya in terms of population, has the potential of being one of the biggest. A place of national and international dreams, it has geo-strategic value to assorted interest groups, both African and extra-continental. It is also a place of regional security concern. With its picturesque islands, it is close to the regional haven of terrorism, the disunited Somalia.

Lamu attracts attention for mixed reasons, negative and positive. Three negatives stand out. First, Lamu’s proximity to Al Shabaab prone Somalia makes it vulnerable to sporadic terror disturbances that are hard to contain because the suspects tend to melt into the people, particularly in the Boni forest area. Second, low levels of public civic education on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in the Kenyan state appear to distance the people from the state.