North Eastern must shun cultural practices, embrace development

By Omar Mohamed
Mention northern Kenya and what comes to mind is hunger, insecurity and disease.

It is a region where images of men, women and children on the verge of starvation have become an unofficial trademark as often seen in our print and electronic media. Ugly shanties crown the hopelessness that prevails, nearly 50 years after independence.

Bandit attacks, livestock theft, wanton killings and poverty have killed the ego and dignity of a once proud Somali people.

How did it all start? Pundits point to the period immediately after independence and the misguided agitation to secede from Kenya and be part of the so-called greater Somalia.

The aftermath was the bloody Shifta war as Kenya fought to maintain its territorial border. Many lives and livestock that form the economic mainstay of the region were lost. Men and women suffered injuries that rendered them economically unproductive while others were rounded up and detained in concentration camps.

In the process, some crossed over into Somalia to live as refugees while those who remained behind had to live under a state of emergency slapped by the Government to check further insurrection. The era of hunger and insecurity in the region had begun.

The end of the Shifta war in the late 1960s saw the Government with assistance from the United States of America start a multi million shillings range water project for the entire region with grazing blocks.

The project modelled on the American Cow Boy ranges of Arizona, Texas and other states failed because it did not incorporate the local Somali community for resource management.

What followed was a massive migration of locals from district to district, contrary to the age-old traditional grazing pattern dictated by wet and dry seasons. Result? Severe environmental degradation of the rangelands and subsequent poverty.

This collapse of the US Range Water Development Project, Cow Boy style was followed in the 1980s by the notorious Structural Adjustment Programme introduced by the World Bank.

The programme effectively removed Government subsidy on water, health, education and other essential services with dire effects on the recovery of pastoral communities from the Shifta menace.

The Arid Lands Resource Management Programme that came to life in 1994 courtesy of the World Bank showed signs of resuscitating the region through emergency intervention, only to come to an abrupt end last year. Oh, what a blow it was! Tragically, there was no fall back management in place.

The creation of the Ministry of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands by the Coalition Government in 2008 generated hope but fell short of offering the expected solutions to the endemic problems of hunger and insecurity.

The ministry was expected to initiate infrastructural development and make food security in the region a priority. Was this excitement and hope achieved? If not so, why?

There was a total misunderstanding of the roles and functions of the ministry in my opinion and wrong perception that it would be allocated a huge budget to undertake infrastuctural developments.

In my view, the ministry should have played a facilitator, advocacy   and advisory role in and outside the Government while helping overturn bad policies that have slowed and stalled  development of the region.

It ought to have served as a catalyst to mainstream ministries mandated to run water, road, agriculture, livestock and other basic services.

The ministry ought to have taken upon itself the task of lobbying the Cabinet, the Treasury and other organs for increased funds and reached out to donors, locally and internationally to support the functions of line ministries within the region.

The region needs affirmative action to catch up with the rest of the country as happened in 1964 when the late Abdisirat Khalif lobbied the Government through then Vice President, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga to give 20 Russian scholarships specifically to the Somali of North Eastern Province.

The scholarships through high school and university education gave the region its first university graduates whose contribution to the region and the country at large was phenomenal. They included Dr Ahmed Subow, the late Dr Abass Sheikh Farah, the late Dr Ugas Ahmed Liban, Dr Adam Adawa, and Dr Yusuf Maalim among others.

The Ministry of Northern Kenya should urge the Government to allow students who score C+ and above to join public universities complete with Government scholarships to mitigate the effects of biting poverty.

Secondary school education in Northern Kenya should be 100 per cent free alongside veterinary drugs, vaccinations and provision of water for livestock.

To forge ahead smoothly, the region needs to shun retrogressive cultural practices and embrace new social organisations with the territorial interests of Wajir, Garissa and Mandera.

Merit and performance as opposed to clan ought to define the men and women elected to powerful county positions of governor, senator and women’s representative.

Clan anointment of candidates must be rejected to avoid a situation where known clan warlords ascend to those positions. Strictly, all nominations should be done through political party processes to avoid confusion.

We do not want clan warlords in positions of influence in the region.

The writer is a political commentator