Page 11 - MANDERA-COUNTY- REVIEW-3RD-EDITION

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While we know we are far from getting out of
the woods, the people of Mandera can bear me
witness that we are more secure today than we
have ever been because of a willing govern-
ment and right leadership. Asante Rais Uhuru
Kenyatta!
In order to realise even better security in Man-
dera, a few issues must be addressed: there is
still lack of consistency in security patrols, our
inside Kenya. Territorial
Somali settlements level of our day-to-day vigilance needs to be im-
level of alertness needs to be improved, the
proved, our security officers must develop clear
threshold of patriotism so that at the very least,
violation.
they will refuse to be bribed in any terror-related
Bullahawa somali
issue. Our security teams must also win public
trust in order to continue receiving actionable
No man’s land. No
intelligence.
settlement allowed
The security forces go on a high alert after at-
tacks and begin to relapse as incidents subside
from media attention. There is need for process
re-engineering by a radical re-design of securi-
ty management in Mandera to increase the level
of vigilance, consistency, speed of response to
threats, as well as intelligence management to
firmly deal with terror threats.
Mandera security ought to be managed as if the
probability of occurrence of a terror attack is at
Kenya’s international Somali international ery successful terror attack in the country, par-
100% every day. This is so because virtually ev-
ticularly the most severe ones, have had a link
border line.
border line.
to Mandera as an access point through which
terrorists have entered Kenya. For example, two
of the 1998 attackers of the US Embassy in Nai-
robi were believed to have entered the country
No man’s land. No later killed in Somalia.
and exited through Mandera. One of them was
settlement allowed
The Westgate shopping mall attackers are also
believed to have entered the country through
Mandera. The Pangani explosion terrorists as
well as the vehicle packed with explosives also
had links to Mandera. The vehicle seized with
explosives in Mombasa is believed to have
come through Mandera. In fact, one of the ter-
rorists captured was reported to have been
from Somalia, but schooled in Mandera. The at-
was attacked three times. The police canteen The terrorists have changed their approach tackers of the bus, the quarry workers and the
was attacked twice and the County Govern- with the aim of making Mandera County and last attack in Mandera all accessed the country
ment offices also attacked twice. Most of entire Kenya ungovernable by targeting non- through Mandera, as were the terrorists who led
these attacks led to fatalities of both locals locals with intentions of imposing total eco- the Garissa University attack.
and non-locals. nomic sanctions.
If this is the reality, then how much vigilance,
We started engagement with the national se- I thank the Kenyan public for understanding consistency and commitment should the nation-
curity team and soon we had a GSU base set the real challenge and for refusing to be ma- al security team in Nairobi and the county secu-
up and officers deployed in big numbers. The nipulated to create a wedge between Muslims rity team provide? Under such circumstances,
counter terrorism unit was revamped and mili- and Christians. shouldn’t we pool all our resources to counter
tary camps set up strategically at points com- this threat? What harm would security suffer by
monly used as access points. Rapid Deploy- We appreciate how the national government bringing the county government on board in se-
ment Unit base was established at a notorious has provided adequate security to sup- curity management at the county level?
entry point for the Al-Shabaab cells and the port the Mandera County government. Even
military was gazetted to join the patrols. More though a lot of criticism has been levelled Who will suffer the most? Is it the County Com-
vehicles were assigned to Mandera and with- against the president and the national secu- missioner or the governor whose development
in a short time, the frequency of terror attacks rity managers, I can attest to the fact that it is priorities will never be realised in an insecure
was drastically reduced. only under the leadership of President Uhuru setting? In my view, the security management
Kenyatta that we got the deserved security at-
Today, the frequency of attacks has drasti- tention for Mandera people. Never before has should remain in the hands of the national gov-
ernment, but county governments should be
cally reduced. As Al-Shabaab change strat- this level of attention been given to Mandera closely involved in certain aspects of security
egies, the severity of occurrences of the few County’s security situation by any president. management at the very least. Even if all coun-
successful attacks has increased, like the at- As the governor of this volatile region, I wish ties cannot do what we have done in Mandera,
tacks on the bus and the quarry workers tar- to express my gratitude to Almighty Allah
geting upcountry people. and President Kenyatta for providing unprec- they can still catalyse performance to get the
desired results.
edented support to the crises in my county.