Page 82 - MANDERA-COUNTY- THE 2019 MAGAZINE

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Elder’s unforgettable memories

SENATOR YUSUF HAJI

e is a father figure in the He adds that unlike today where people enter
entire northern region, Mandera Town and leave at their whim, the situation
Ha unifying factor and then was very different as the township comprising
a no-nonsense administrator about only ten shops was fenced with one gate and
turned politician. one needed a permit to enter.
Garissa Senator Yusuf
Haji’s visit to Mandera was “I am the one who issued the permits and the town
nostalgic, as it brought back was fenced and guarded by police officers dressed
memories of his youthful life in red turban and white uniforms. One had to get
while serving as a District clearance to be in the area and by 6pm the gate
Officer (DO) in 1963. was closed,” recalls the Senator
The senator visited the In those days whenever it started to rain, all the
building which served as his roads were closed ito ensure that heavy trucks did
office over 55 years ago and not destroy the roads.
recalled how challenging
it was working in the area He recalls that the most trying moment of his career
at the height of the Shifta was when he was informed that three Shiftas
uprising and the Somali- wanted to surrender their guns.
Ethiopia War.
“It was a tense moment. When they arrived with the
“It was a very difficult moment and a traumatizing guns in the morning outside the barricade I asked
experience then, especially the war between them to put the guns down near the fence and
Somalia and Ethiopia. Missiles fired by the warring move behind fifteen yards then we recovered the
countries used to pass over my office as Mandera is guns. I however received a tongue lashing from my
sandwiched between the two countries,” he recalls. superiors for putting my life on the line,” he says.
To complicate matters, the raging Shifta War in
the region gave me sleepless nights as there was "There is a very big change in the county under the
a curfew imposed and the situation became more leadership of Governor Ali Roba, which I would not
There is a very big critical following the murder of a white District have envisioned when I served as an administrator
change in the county Officer Andrew near Elwak. her," Senator Haji notess.
under the leadership Andrew, recalls the senator was travelling back to The roads, he says have been tarmacked, water
of Governor Ali Roba, Mandera from Isiolo when he got a puncture a few drilled in the area unlike before when they used to
fetch water from River Daua using donkeys.
kilometers to Elwak and in the process of changing
which he would not the tyre, they were attacked by Shifas and he was Sanitary facilities have been established in the
have envisioned killed. town, unlike during Haji’s time when they used a
bucket as a toilet.
Haji narrates that the security situation in the
when I served as an area then was so bad that vehicles travelled in
administrator in the convoys with three police escort units in front of the “In those days we had one small dispensary which
served the locals including people from Ethiopia and
convoy, middle and the rear. The state of the road
area. aggravated the situation. Somalia. Even during the Shifta War the dispensary
remained open but today the county government
“Travelling from Mandera to Thika took us three has established modern health facilities,” he adds.
days using either the Kula Mawe-Isiolo or the Wajir
Garissa routes. The convoy comprised of 40 to 50 Development that has been attained in Mandera
vehicles and at no time was any of the vehicles since the advent of devolution is enormous and the
supposed to stop unless it was an emergency and Senator believes that in another 50 years, the county
in the event of one, the headlights were switched on would have achieved very significant growth.
and all vehicles stopped,” he says.