Maryan Hussein Declares interest in County Seat

Maryan Hussein, an employee of Garissa Municipal Council has thrown her hat into Garissa County politics. Her campaign launch was attended by various representatives of women's groups. She called for a permanent change in the status quo, the recognition of women's contribution to society and their ability to succeed in leadership roles.

Maryan said many women who lost their livestock due to the sporadic drought have lost their livelihood and were in dire need for micro financing projects that will help reduce the impact of the poverty. she added: "I bilieve i understand the county's problem having bred here and thrust into the thick of problems but after suffering the problem i come with a solution and not bickering," "i was shocked since it was taking me long to make some voter understand the position i will vie for " she said She urged men to shun their preconception that women can never be leaders . The ODM nominated mp Sofia Abdi was the first women who ever tried a parliamentary seat in Ijara constituency of Garissa county 1997 elections but lost .same to others who have been trying civic seats .  

In Kigali, Lessons For Garissa

It's a well documented fact that Garissa has a massive hygiene problem. While our city has experienced turbocharged growth in the past decade, we still lack a proper garbage disposal mechanism and our sewerage system is medieval.

In spite of this, we pompously proclaim ourselves to be Muslims while ignoring an important tenet of Islam that lays great emphasis on cleanliness and hygiene.

I have always laid the blame for this on general illiteracy, our notorious lack of civic mindedness and the ever useful "my qabil" political gambit that has served our MPs and Councilors so well for so long while leaving the rest of us dying  of dysentery.

Let me come back to the point of this post though. Kigali, Rwanda is one of Africa's cleanest and healthiest cities. Every Kigali resident has health insurance and clean air to breathe.Laws there are  well defined and enforced . But the most impressive thing about Kigali is how its residents maintain its cleanliness as the video embedded below illustrates.

The only difference between Kigali and Garissa or even Nairobi is the leadership. In Kigali and in Rwanda generally, leaders care about their people and are mainly motivated by a sense of public duty. In Garissa, our leaders are bunch of thugs who use their tenure to strip us of our wealth through taxation (without representation) and then divert it to their offshore bank accounts.

Most surprising though, we Garissans know where we stand and have no illusions about it.
We get to live in dry, sewer invested, unpaved neighbourhoods, eat expired food, die of pneumonia or dysentery at 39, get buried in a nondescript grave at a nondescript yard and then face Allah's questions for all our deficiencies.

In between, we get an election cycle every half a decade, vote with our blood lineage, get rewarded with a few police parades on Madaraka Day and forever remain hapless historical footnotes.

As Moi put it in his ultimate pabulum, "Siasa Mbaya, Maisha Mbaya."

Are NEP's Youthful Leaders Engaging in Premature Triumphalism?

 I pose this question because The Standard's Boniface Ongeri & Isaiah Lucheli wrote a piece titled "Youthful Leaders Have Grand Plans for NEP."


Given that elections are a little over a year away, Somalis in NEP must now decide what sort of counties they want to live in. We could go on with the status-quo and remain retrogressive  in every economic and social indicator. Or, we could free ourselves from the shackles of clanism and actively set about creating the sort of society that other Kenyans envy and want emulate.


Great Societies are created by, among other things, the coming together of civic groups, educated youths, philanthropists and governments dedicated to working for their people. And for NEP, given all the decentralization the new constitution affords us, this is surely the moment. The chemistry is right.


What then is needed to get the chemistry going? We need educated leadership whose sole interest is driving up economic growth, reducing red tape and appropriating development funds where they will yield the best results while offering citizens the most convenience. Above all, we need leadership that will foster a sense of self confidence in Somalis and attract financial investment in our livestock industry and farmland along  The Tana. We need leaders who will promote education over illiteracy, self-sufficiency over perpetual dependence, cohesion over disenfranchisement and most importantly leadership that takes advantage of our religious, cultural and lingual homogeneity instead of dividing us into clans and sub-clans.


What we don't need is another politician who talks big but thinks small and our leaders have been the worst offenders when it comes to this.The season of aggrandizing politicians and derelict citizenry should be over.   Our current political leaders, with notable exceptions, are perhaps the least impressive in Kenya. They are pathologically incapable of seeing the big picture. Evermore relying on connections and bribery to maintain their seats while delivering nothing. They never preach self sufficiency or urge the Somali investor class to build their home province instead of putting billions into Eastleigh  and never bring to the floor legislation of any significance.


In the past ten years, Garissa has come far but we are still unable to take pride in our achievements because many of us consider them an ascent from jaw-dropping badness to mere mediocrity. This is why, I am pro-youthful leadership and an end to our decadent political system.However, for all the talk of "youthful" leadership, I have to say, besides Abdikadir Mohammed of Mandera, I'm yet to be impressed by any the so called youths. Garissa's mayor has been a big turn off for a lot people and has seriously undermined the youth agenda. His self-confidence has tipped into insouciance and neglect of duty. While he is not evil intentioned, most of his administration has been plagued by incompetence. Even failing in things as mundane as garbage collection.


The Standard quotes Khalif Abdi who gave an accurate diagnosis of why enthusiasm for youthful leadership is waning.

Some residents say certain youth elected into leadership roles have failed to meet expectations."They had the opportunity to prove to the skeptics that they were up to the challenge but some have been a big disappointment and embarrassment to the youth fraternity," Khalif Abdi Farah, the coordinator of Northern Forum for Democracy said.Khalif explains the difference between the old guard and the youth was that the elderly leaders were easily accessible and selfless, but the youth were selfish and poor managers."Some of the youthful leaders are already under probe for misuse of funds while others have accumulated questionable wealth and are living beyond their paltry pay," Khalif added

In conclusion, even though this is a boon time for youthful leaders, I would urge those seeking positions of power to not succumb to premature triumphalism. Pay attention to detail, convince us you are the right people for elected office, articulate your views without pandering to clan overlords, come up with manifestos that will get us drooling and go above and beyond in courting the votes of elders and youths alike. Finally, make sure you are educated and have an impeccable record as far as personal integrity is concerned. Trust me, nobody wants to unleash a bunch of half baked, khat addled youngsters on the public. If it means seeking non-glamorous positions such as becoming a councilor to gain legislative experience, do so. You'll be all the better for it! 


That's my two cents worth! 

Aden Barre Dualle: Bad MP, Worse Politician

 Behold the hard-hitting, principled, tell-it-as-it-is politico representing the great people of Dujis for the past 3 years. The man seems to be (mis)guided by an inner compass that has the accuracy of a Chinese Rolex watch, assembled in the sweatshops  of Tianjin.

 Just as the people he is representing were retelling the horrors visited upon them by the Moi & Kenyatta regimes, the psychopath was in Uhuru Park drumming support for the son of  the murderous villain who killed his ancestors. To his credit, the man never pretended to care about Dujis and its people. He was elected in a moment of revulsion against Hussein Maendeleo and his preferred heir. His platonic ideals were bereft of substance and now the rookie is almost as washed-up as the man he replaced (maendeleo).

   In any case, since the man's greatest dream seems to be getting a sound-byte into the news cycles, he is doing a great a job at that. Now all our sweaty unintelligent MPs, who have an expiration date on their public service tenure know what to do. Make crazy statement in front of crowds, get in the news cycle as often as possible and wait your last days out.

 Here is a video of him welcoming the Ocampo Six.  The sad part is that we will be hearing this utter crap for almost another year and half depending on when elections take place in 2012.

Garissa's Ruinous Relationship With its Leaders

 In every wretched relationship, there are moments that are so loathsome they make a person throw his hands in the air and vehemently seek vengeance with brute force. Somali Kenyans have reached that point. The anger on the ground in Garissa and other places is palpable. Whilst an unmitigated disaster unfolds in NEP as people starve, the government is splashing money on defending War criminals and genocidaires. It's a reflection of the future that lies ahead in the sick relationship between MPs and their subjects. As poverty and frustration percolate to the core of society, the men we elected to change our fortunes are busy aligning themselves with internationally recognized war criminals. As somali mothers get gang raped by the same people (Police) that were supposed to provide them with protection, our elected Somali officials are busy thwarting the ICC's pursuit of Ruto and Uhuru. As we get humiliated on our own streets by policemen who see us as walking ATM machines, our MPs pusillanimously cow-tow to the fascism of a government that we've been disenchanted with for almost half a century.

 For those of us that are unemployed, educated and frustrated, let's be done with these goons and let them be done with us. Let them start businesses with all the money they stole over these 5 years and make millions in profit. We will promise not begrudge them-as long as they create jobs here in Garissa and stay out of politics.

 To the youth, I urge you to be cynical of everything these pseudo-dictators tell you. Cultivate the Tunisian in you and even if it takes a low level intifada to bust the existing political class delineation in our county, GO FOR IT. GOD BLESS YOU!

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Leadership

  My very wise father once told me we are all leaders in our own rights and that we all possess the ability to significantly improve our lives if we are willing to work hard for it. I like that. Sometimes when I'm in a public place or sipping tea in a cafe listening to the BBC , I'll watch people passing by and I'll silently say to myself, "He is a leader. She's a leader. He's a leader, She's a leader." Before long I'll find myself feeling a warm sense of affinity for these strangers. The experience goes up by a couple notches whenever the subject of my observation is an individual of vestigial importance or a person in suffering. On occasion, I'll get into an argument with obnoxious uncle who will turn my spiritual feeling into a domino effect of confusion, fear and regrettable indecision.

 My point , apart from bringing some levity to what is otherwise a boring blog, is to enunciate that  young and old, we can all do our bit to reinvent NEP and I think it helps that we have almost nothing to be proud of now.

Another Season, Another Drought

 It's that time of year when every self righteous MP, NGO and non-profit organization rushing to aid the drought stricken folks of the arid North gets vociferous about the needs of pastrolists. I'm not a believer in Voodoo or Indian "Karma" but I can't help think that may be we are being repayed for our consistent exiguous choice of leadership. It's only in NEP where mediocrity, fear, desperation and perpetual dependency are virtues richly rewarded. If we are to free ourselves from this vicious cycle of poverty, we will have to act as individuals and groups to correct errs that have been made in the past.

  Call me insensitive but I do not see the point in the continuation of this most primitive method of self sustenance. Being a pastrolist living at the mercy of elements in the 21st century is no longer a viable livelihood choice. Any government worth its salt will sure not let its citizens suffer such an ignominious existence. Tremendous strides have been made in turning nomads into sedentary farmers in other parts of the world and I do not see why we are not agitating for such change here in NEP. If any of our civic groups, MPs and local media were good enough, they would be preaching the virtues of educating children and not making them perform laborious tasks such as herding Camels that die by the thousands every time drought strikes which believe me, is almost once a year. While the world around us collapses on itself, it is surprising that many of us are sweating the small stuff. We focus more on whether Red cross rushes to our aid every time a drought strikes and not on what we can do to be self sufficient.

  Our brain dead MPs , at this time of the year, can be seen distributing food donated by foreigners in the hinterlands of our province as the poor and hungry sing songs in their praise. These men make exploiting poor people look elegant, cool and fun. Given the reality of their existence is the culmination of hypocrisy and nightmarish descent into madness for the few that have a guilt sense, it won't be so hard to anticipate the demise of these parasitic men. Not to be pedantic but our not-so-mysterious, intermittent downward slide can be blamed on who we choose to represent us in positions of leadership.

 I hope we all live too see the day North Easterner's will elect a leader who is highly articulate, deeply thoughtful, not overly crippled by the poison of tribalism and capable of improving quality of education, creating jobs and taking NEP to a new frontier. I can ascertain you that tribalism can kill you faster than any germ.

The Achievement Test

On Jan. 2008,  the four men we elected based on what tribe they were born into took an oath to represent us  in the national assembly. Three years on, what have they done for us? As I launch this critique of the imbeciles we elected, I'm sure some of the tribalist among us are already rushing to the barricades to defend the clowns that continue to undermine NEP.

 Our MPs are consumed with protecting their seats and making sure they've stashed away enough wealth in their bank accounts. Some of that money will of course be used to bribe a few old, illiterate, self appointed clan leaders to deliver the votes of their clansmen once another inconvenient election cycle comes around. Three years ago, we were all complaining about Police harassment, unreliable electricity, poor service at public offices and youth unemployment. Today, all those problem remain and collectively, we haven't improved one bit.

 The lack of intergenerational equity has brought to surface a whole lot of social problems. Drug addiction among our youth is rendering a whole generation unproductive. Teen pregnancies are on the rise and school drop out rates are sky high. This has resulted in very ugly incidents such as the widely reported youth homicides.  Over 5 young adults were recently knifed to death in bizarre incidents. Local leaders are blaming it on high cellphone use,internet addiction and immigrants from Somalia ..Really??
 
Police Thuggery
 North Eastern has been turned into a virtual police state. Citizens of this godforsaken province are subjected to daily humiliation by the policies of a fascistic government . The new constitution and realities on the ground in NEP are disjointed. I understand the government has a reason to be concerned about security given its almost paranoid fear of Alshabab but to put police barricades in every village in this expansive region deserves a lot of scrutiny especially when these men are famous for corruption rather than protecting citizens. Travel is a nightmare not only because of the poor road network in our province but also because of constant police stops and harassment. Trade is almost about to grind to a halt. Recently, I talked to a friend of mine, a Zafanana conductor, who confirmed my aforementioned assertions but I believe everyone is aware of this. Just that we cannot protest about it and our local media is too busy playing 70's music to cover any issue of social importance.

 Ruined Education
 Our public schools are no longer institutions that educate, they probably have never been. They have always lagged behind their peers in other parts of the country. If as people we do not see the moral argument for 'better education', we should at least see its productive value. Our clansmen in Parliament have faltered in delivering any results on this front.

 Public officers are demi-gods in our province. They are not there to serve us, rather, we are supposed to be slaves in need of their mercy. Routine things like getting a birth certificate for 20 month old child born in a hospital turn into an experience at humiliation and servitude. Never mind the fact that the  person frustrating you is a clerk with just high school or college education imported from another place while thousands of our capable youth remain unemployed. Getting an ID or a passport has long ago turned into an exercise in futility. There are about 10 inspection spots between Nairobi and Garissa and 20 more between Garissa-Wajir.

 Ask yourself, what has your MP done over the past three years? Maybe, he built a toilet (at inflated price) in your constituency to vindicate himself but has any of his actions led to any tangible improvements to your quality of life? At least Mandera and Wajir have men of who are at the forefront of the silent revolution taking place in Government. How many times have you stopped to ask yourself if your kids will go to better schools than you went to before you referred to these morons as "Mheshimiwa."  Adan Dualle, Yusuf Haji, Farah Maalim and Sugow are the worst politicians in the national assembly. At least three of those men are not intellectually at par with their peers in parliament. Yusuf Haji is almost senile and incapable of making a coherent statement in Swahili, maybe english too. Sugow, aaah...don't even get me started on him.

Youth activism
  As individuals, we need to bring prudence and reason to these matters instead of regurgitating widely known facts. What North Eastern needs is nothing short of a revolution, a mindset revolution. We, as people, have turned into captives to (partly) our own failures. Nepusa and other student bodies need to educate the public on the evils of tribalism. Sheikhs will have to declare war on our unaccountable representation. Every youth movement in the province has to take on the responsibility of educating the public and protecting their elders from abusive government policies. My entire argument is predicated on the assumption that private and individual industry has the biggest societal benefit. We have the capacity to collectively change our lives if we free ourselves from the shackles tribalism. Young university graduates should challenged the old guard for positions of leadership at the national and municipal level.
The hallmark of human achievement is to learn from the past and build a future that is better than the present. As of now, we are failing on this front but we can surely turn the tide to our favour should we rise up to the challenge. What we need is an engaged active youth that will shake up how things are done in this County and in the entire province.

Of Sh. Mustafa, The Deficit of Leadership, Misplaced Priorities & The Makhraj (Solution)

 Two weeks ago I wrote a piece for the blog on Clerics that went down well with majority of the readers but drew the ire of a few of those who trade in cheap "holier- than-thou' monologues. Basically I elucidated my opinion that within the sparkly bubble that is our so called guardians (read clerics) reside individuals of questionable moral and intellectual capacity.  Their pontifications should be subject to rigorous questioning and cynicism. To get the best results out of our leadership, secular or religious, we should not never rely purely on their human good will. Also to succeed as a society we should never suppress debate and the free exchange of high brow opinions. I have no desire to tread in carefully scripted socially correct platitudes . I also don't wish to be popular since I don't fancy selling my soul. My hope is to illicit a strong reaction from my readers so that we can all begin to question the fundamentals our society is based on.

 Among the respondents to my earlier post was an individual who called my Opining "Kufr and blasphemous." This Bifwoli-esque individual also insisted that I "delete the post since it was abusing our Lord!" Capital letters and all. Unfortunately this sort of the cuff verbal hemorrhage is pervasive in our society anytime controversial issues such as clanism, bad leadership and the role of clerics in the perennial failure of Garissa to catch up with other kenyan cities come up. If we are to see any tangible difference in our lives Post 2012, such misplaced sensitivities have to replaced with visionary thinking that will free us from the doldrums of the status quo. This will boil down to the sort of leadership we chose. But the question of who is a good leader is an inherently difficult one to answer. How much of a leaders decisions should be informed by pragmatism and how much should be swayed by religious puritanism? These sort of questions will be integral to the debate once power is devolved to ethnically and religiously homogeneous counties. There will be jostling for power between religious leaders and those we elect (our clansmen). I have no answer to these questions but luckily for us, Sh. Mustafa, (may Allah bless him) has. In a very enlightened lecture, he goes where none of todays (somali) sheikhs have ever gone and by the way, I follow the lectures of almost all the famous somali ulamaa regularly so I'm not making that statement lightly.

Please listen to it if you have the time it will be 90 minutes spent well.
                                                                                                                                         -A. Ainy

The Untamed Beasts of NEP

      Shoot me for being a believer in fairies and I'll die believing the people of NEP have their better days ahead of them. The current brain-dead leadership in our region will not steer us to the promised land. I'm sure most of us would welcome any phantom over the current cadre of MPs who have lowered us several rungs below where we were in 2000. Between the last three MPs, we've heard ministers, assistant Ministers and generals who've held position of power and wealth. Where did all this great power and influence take us? An infrastructure worse than that of Ancient Greece,perennially failing schools, super-high unemployment and a lack of basic needs. A Leaddership that has encouraged and at times bank rolled intra-tribal conflicts for their own political gains. A power hungry class that divides people into class and clans to exploit them.

    Maybe this is the time for the Achebe reading youth of Garissa High, Umu Salama and Wajir High, who wouldn't mix well at the privileged tables but are bound to be an improvement over the current illiterate and socially connected class. This is time for the youth to vie for positions of leadership. Its the right time for 25 year olds from Nep who hold University degrees but are held in doldrums of despair and hopelessness to take up their rightful position in society.

I wish they would run and if they do, I'll wish them the very best. I hope no one goes to a voting booth to cast their vote for an incumbent.Its time for unleashing the untamed beasts.
Currently there are a number who are considering vying for positions. The likes of Devii, Sadeeq, Salah and numerous others who have decided to put themselves on the line for the greater good of the common class. Kick out the old guard for the fresh blood has far greater things to offer. Let the revolution start.

Sdiq's thoughts: The illiterate councilors in NEP - Kenya

By "the incredible" Sdiq Baqad
There are only a handful of magnificent architectural structures in Garissa, the capital of North-Eastern Province in Kenya (NEP). And, one of these buildings is the Catholic Church in the town. You might wonder why the presence of a church would be very conspicuous in a majority Muslim town. However, this has everything to do with the quality of the councilors we have in the province – the elected local government officials. The public library in the town is also outstanding and is actually rumoured to be the best in the country.

Due to the poor pay associated with such onerous but important tasks, most of the elite shun these junior political positions. They instead prefer the other more prestigious occupations that come with the money. Politically, the least they accept are parliamentary positions, which in Kenya are known to pay very well - and tax free salaries at that. This, therefore, leaves some, mostly illiterate, persons to take the local governance jobs. And, that’s where our problem stems from.

In addition, town planning is usually done at the central level - in the state capital. Technocrats in Nairobi are the ones tasked with planning for the whole of Kenya. It is these groups that draw maps for all towns in Kenya. Though there is nothing wrong with these surveyors, cartographers and other similar professionals being adherents of a particular faith, the maps they draw usually come with a wrong assumption that everyone in Kenya is a Christian. Thus, they fallaciously indicate ‘church’ on the maps rather than leave this option open, or write 'place of worship' instead.

And, this is where our ill-educated leaders come in. For some reasons, they take the word 'church' literally, not realizing that the proposed church land is in fact a space meant for the majority of an area to establish their own place of worship. Thus, if the residents of a region are predominantly of a certain faith, say, for example, Islam, then it is a mosque that deserves priority in such an area. Conversely, if the same region was predominated by Catholics, then a catholic church should be given precedence over other houses of worship.

It is for this reason that you will find almost all mosques in Garissa, and by extension in the whole province, being built on privately acquired land. A Muslim could, for example, buy a plot for the purpose of an Islamic worship centre, or offer a piece from their own parcels. This, sadly, makes most of the mosques in the region to be squeezed on some small plots. Expansion of the same, or the establishment of a madrassa within the compound of the masjid, thus becomes an impossible feat. On the other hand, the minority Christians in Garissa enjoy the prime most areas for their churches, and on relatively expansive plots.

The Somalis never see this as a problem though. As long as they have access to some place they can go and do their worship, then there isn’t a dilemma, regardless of the quality of the same. This effectively denies the Muslims in this region enough spaces for their other religious needs, and notably, madrassas.

Whereas this setback is primarily caused by the experts in Nairobi, the councilors aren’t infallible too. They do also contrive to deny residents of other social amenities. You will be surprised that there are whole sections of Garissa that are inaccessible by road. Apart from some school playgrounds, the town also does not have public recreation facilities. All these are solely as a result of the illiterate officials that locals elect every so often.

Now, the residents of NEP have to pay a price for the ineptness of the central government combined with the idiocy of their local officials. You will be surprised though if you contrast what happens in NEP and the reality in other parts of the country. Muslims in other parts of the country, or even adherents of other faiths, are primarily considered if they form the majority in a given place. A good example would be towns in Central Province like Thika, Muranga and Margua - places I have visited before.

Luckily, the newly promulgated Kenyan Constitution devolves a lot of the power initially concentrated at the central level to the county level. This would, therefore, make all developmental decisions, and other issues regarding the advancement of the citizens, to be deliberated by the locals themselves. Also, many educated youth are now eyeing these junior political positions, mostly out of desperation for unemployment is very high in the region. Therefore, and as a result of the above two, the future seems to be very bright.