Billow Kerrow on the lack of Social Justice for Somali Kenyans

OPINION

Social justice for the people of northern Kenya is still a mirage

SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTEMAILRATING

By BILLOW KERROW

Posted  Wednesday, April 27 2011 at 18:46

In the past one week, the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) has been in North-Eastern Kenya getting a first-hand account of over 45 years of official neglect, deprivation and social injustice visited upon the residents by successive regimes.

The emotional outpouring by the residents has largely been unnoticed nationally, save for the media focus on the monstrous atrocities such as the Wagalla Massacre.

Brutal security operations continue unabated, and even as the Commission was being set up in 2008, security forces tortured and maimed several hundreds in Mandera.

Section 27(6) of the Constitution requires the State to take affirmative measures and policies to “redress any disadvantage suffered by individuals or groups because of past discrimination”.

However, the Commission should pay greater attention to the prevailing social injustice rather than being fixated on historical injustices.

This week, they will be in Mandera County that is reeling from the effects of the worst drought this decade.

Hundreds face death as a result of extreme hunger and thirst, while their economic livelihoods, namely livestock, continue to perish.

The government has a constitutional obligation to provide adequate food and water to all its citizens, without discrimination, among other socio-economic rights outlined in Section 46.

For the marginalised, Section 56 further mandates the government to provide infrastructure, such as boreholes, schools and health facilities as fundamental human rights.

As Indian writer and activist, Arundhati Roy argues, the assault on social justice has eroded its definition, made us lower our sights and curtail our expectations.

The notion of equality has undergone a process of attrition and eased out of equation.

He argues that these human rights violations are increasingly portrayed as unfortunate fallouts from an otherwise acceptable political and economic system.

The TJRC members’ mandate includes investigating the marginalisation of communities, and providing redress where necessary.

Will they order the government to immediately declare the ravaging famine in the region a national disaster and help halt the region’s march to devastation?

They are aware that the region’s youth cannot obtain identity cards due to official

The Kenya Human Rights Commission, in its 2009 publication titled “Foreigners at home – the dilemma of citizenship in Northern Kenya”, accuses the government of institutionalised discrimination on the itizenship of the residents through arbitrary denial.

Can TJRC urgently address this? Section 10 of the Constitution deems that social justice, equity and protection of the marginalised are national values that must be applied whenever State organs implement public policy decisions. Will the up-coming recruitment of 7,000 policemen be done equitably?

Section 232 on public service jobs demands that the State affords ‘‘adequate and equal opportunities and representation of diverse communities’’ in appointments, training and advancement.

Representation is best reflected through the regional, county or constituency population, which roughly mirrors our ethnic diversity.

Based on the 2009 census, and without the affirmative action “privilege” for minorities as proposed by Mr Orwa Ojodeh in Parliament, Nairobi would take 569 jobs, Central 795 Rift Valley 1,814 and North-Eastern 419 jobs.

This is arrived at by dividing the region or county’s population by the national population, and multiplying by the 7,000 jobs.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Bill 2011 is also in violation of Section 250 of the Constitution as regards the composition of the commissioners.

The section stipulates unequivocally that appointments to constitutional commissions and independent offices “shall reflect regional and ethnic diversity of the people of Kenya”.

The Bill suggests that five commissioners be appointed now, and four others in a year’s time.

Which region will play second fiddle to the other? Not North-Eastern, please!

Mr Kerrow, a former Mandera Central MP, is a political economist.

« Previous Page 1 | 2

Billow Kerrow destroys Oparanya.

The Standard | Online Edition :: Census circus and the need to independently audit results

Published on

Related Stories

 Why 2012 won't be an easy ride

 Myths blamed for wrong results in some districts

 Census' tribal figures have returned to haunt us

 Boundary review must reflect broad national consensus

 'Exclusion of small communities shouldn’t be cause for worry'

 Densely populated counties to receive more devolved funds

Billow Kerrow

Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya never strikes me as an astute professional who gets his sums right. He displays scanty regard for integrity of his numbers, and much less the inconsistency of his statements. The 2009 census exposed his general lack of diligence.

The North Eastern Province (NEP) and Somali numbers reveal the census results were anything but factual. The minister cancelled most of NEP results on grounds that the "rate of increase is higher than the population dynamics would support" and that the "age and sex profiles deviate from the norm". In simple terms, he stated the population increase in NEP was higher than the birth and death rates statistics, and that "men outnumbered women three times". The minister’s ignorance about this region drives him to make unwitty reference to birth and death statistics even as the household survey he published revealed that less than 10 per cent of women deliver in hospitals in that region due to very low coverage of health facilities. No hospital has cold room facilities in its mortuary, and with the relatively hot climate, the dead are immediately buried. Consequently, there are insignificant records of births and deaths to talk about.

The results he published do not reveal that men far out-number women. In all these districts, the ratio is indeed similar to that in other regions, and in the worst case it was 55 to 45. He also told the media 140 per cent increase in the population in NEP occurred because elderly residents refused to respond to the census questions for cultural reasons and "would instead grab the questionnaire and fill it in themselves" leading to inaccuracies. This is not true.

The same census revealed that about 90 per cent of the residents of the region is illiterate. How then could such people fill in the complicated census forms that even we professionals could not fill in by ourselves? Since all census officials in the region had security, how come no one was arrested for such violations? And since the chaos was widespread, why was not a single incident reported at the time, either in the media, or at the police stations? Who has since been arrested in the year-long investigation? Curiously, how did the clerks accept back the forms from the ‘unruly’ residents? And if it happened in NEP, could it not have occurred elsewhere too?

In his speech, the minister acknowledged "complex logistics for enumeration of pastoralists communities" among other things. Had the minister studied the results of previous census in the region, he would discover their population trends are dissimilar to the national pattern. For instance, population of NEP in 1979 census was 374,000. Ten years later in 1989, it decreased to 371,000 even as the national average rose by 35 per cent. And in 1999, it jumped to 962,000, almost 160 per cent. The Government never cancelled these results, and attributed it to the nomadic culture of the pastoralists. The results also put the Somali population, whom he derogatively refers to as "Kenyan Somali" at 2.3 million, the same as that of NEP. Where are the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who live in Nairobi, Mombasa, and other parts of Kenya? Did he find their high number unpalatable, and subsume them into one of the other Kenya tribes? Globally, census must promote participation by all the population. Protection of the integrity of the census data is also crucial for its credibility. As early as September last year, the media were awash with population numbers of Somalis, and how the Government was concerned about the huge increase in their population. This premature data release indicates motivation to manipulate the outcome of the census. There is need to independently audit the census results if we are to believe the circus by this minister.

(STANDARD MEDIA GROUP)