Why Lamu missed out on police recruitment

When founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta inspected an all women police guard passing out parade in 1970. [File, Standard]

For ages, Lamu County has suffered owing to its distance from Nairobi and Mombasa, which have been at the centre of political and financial power. Long before devolution, this ancient centre of civilisation was treated as an appendage of Mombasa, to the chagrin of locals.

The suffering came to the fore in 1979 when the government readily admitted that it had not employed a single son or daughter from Lamu as an Administration Police officer for three years in a row.