Mandera risks losing economic advantage brought in by outsiders

What is the similarity between the towns of Kinoo and Kitengela? They are growing much more rapidly than their immediate neighbouring towns — Uthiru and Athi River, towns which let opportunities to welcome local investors in pass them by. There are many similar examples across Kenya.

While several possible explanations can be cited for this unfortunate phenomenon, there is one compelling explanation that cannot be disregarded: the desire by landowners in both Kinoo and Kitengela to sell off their property to enterprising newcomers who have capital and new ideas.

It is amazing how some who are functionally poor are determined to hold on to undeveloped land that could otherwise be sold to external partners to develop it and rescue them from poverty.

Fresh ideas

It is often lost on many people that great cities and towns have been developed by outsiders. That is how the mighty Roman Empire and the US, for instance, were developed. That’s why London and Paris have become case studies of multiracial harmony, thanks to the countless migrants who are willing to invest their talents, ideas and capital in these global cities.

The English Premier League has opened its doors to foreign investors who in turn have given the league its global appeal.

This leads us closer home. In Lamu and more recently Mandera, the economic effects, let alone the psychosocial impact, of the massacre of outsiders will be felt for a long time to come. Already, non-residents have started vacating the coastal and North Eastern counties.

These outsiders, however, had brought in much-needed professional expertise and fresh ideas. They had come with one language that is spoken all over the world: opportunity for profit.

They showed the locals that their much-maligned environment had economic assets that could be exhumed and turned into profitable business.

Development expectations

The crude boulders the butchered masons chiselled into building blocks were the foundation from which a mighty Mandera, like all great cities and towns, was to be born. The teachers who were chillingly murdered by the same Islamist militants that killed the masons had come to Mandera not only for economic reasons, but also to share knowledge. Why else would they have endured the harsh conditions for so long?

I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the Mandera governor at this time. It’s he to whom the people have aimed all their expectations for development within the shortest time possible.

I fear that as matters stand currently, this goal will be hard to achieve. However, it is not impossible. It requires not only the involvement of the national government in terms of containing the Al-Shabaab menace, but also the county leadership.

A good starting point is for the local leadership to roll out public awareness forums to de-link the county (and the Muslim community) from the outlandish religious claims these criminals from Somalia are using to justify their atrocities.

Development just doesn’t happen; there has to be a change of mindset. And since major development undertakings are done by outsiders with an eye for profit, there must be a deliberate cultivation of a new mindset. Residents of all counties need to start looking at outsiders with eyes of collaboration that focus on economic emancipation, rather than with eyes of suspicion.

The writer is a mental health researcher.

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