Tread carefully on boundary review

By Abdirahman Ali Hassan

Northern Kenya has nothing to celebrate or be proud of other than insecurity, neglect and unspeakable hardship. Other arid and semi-arid areas inhabited by pastoral communities are also not spared discrimination in allocation of development funds.

At 24,401 square kilometres, for instance, Wajir South constituency is larger than some districts or provinces but budgetary allocations to the area are woefully inadequate. Size notwithstanding, allocations to the area are peanuts compared to what some smaller constituencies receive. This is one example of the inequities prevalent in a country that expects citizens to embrace the ‘Najivunia kuwa Mkenya’ (proud to be Kenyan) slogan.

The Ministry of Agriculture, for instance, with little presence or impact in northern Kenya received a whopping Sh6.2 billion in the current budget. This allocation is more than double that to the ministries of Livestock Development and Development of Northern Kenya and Other Arid Lands. Little has been done by Government to correct the imbalances that seem to inflict more harm than good on the pastoralist communities.

Marginalised groups place hope in the Independent Boundaries Review Commission created out of the ashes of the bloody post-election violence. Boundaries review is one of the items in the Agenda IV that has to be tackled before the country goes to another election. The Commission has the hard task of addressing injustices that date back to colonial days. Already some political figures are politicising the review reminiscent to the sideshows in the constitution review.

Some are conditioning ratification of the proposed draft constitution to increases of constituencies in regions with higher population. That suggestion is selfish and naive. The Commission should ignore the demands. We are a forgetful lot as leaders and history is my witness. We politicised the comprehensive review and the referendum and what did we reap? Chaos, ethnic division and suspicion. Facts should guide the process if a recurrence is to be avoided.

—The writer is the MP for Wajir South.