By Abu Husna
It has been more than 10 years since the inception of devolution in Kenya with a new constitution pledging to chart a new roadmap for sustainable economic, political and social transformation particularly in northern counties that are lagging behind in all aspects of life.
Sadly, with all the devolution goodies, there is still an open co-existence of widespread poverty, unemployment, inequality and poor service delivery. The three counties of Garissa, Wajir and Mandera are not closing the gaps in development milestones any time soon.
We have the budget to transform the region, improve living standard of the people and provide quality public services. Compared to pre-devolution period, the region receives a significant amount of annual allocations from the national government which can set the tempo for growth and development.
Expectations are getting low, our hopes waning and the future of the region looks uncertain. There is no reason or excuse as to why we fester in the current cosmos of biting underdevelopment when we have golden opportunities to seize and transform the region. We have endured, the trouble and vexation of the 24 year KANU rule yet there is no reason for us to stagnate at a time when we have resources that can invigorate our aspirations for growth and development
The saddest, we have nothing to show for massive allocation that have been coming to the accounts of our counties since 2013. We still have one of the highest poverty rates, the lowest health and education indicators and our people are sliding deeply into entrenched poverty. Ordinary citizens are loading the dice in life unable to get essential yet critical services, putting the future of our people on the edge.
Political goodwill
We are destroying the future of our next generations with lack of political goodwill exacerbated by a noxious amalgamation of incompetency, unaccountability and vainglory. These loathsome features of our leaders slow down or encumber access to quality education, health, water and good living standards for the overwhelming majority of our people.
Local leaders have adopted a seemingly clandestine trait whose motives are bent on enriching themselves using public resources. Greed for wealth, hunger for fame and an insatiable appetite for a fabulous lifestyle overshadows public prosperity unfavourably weakening our prognosis for a better future. Our road map for sustainable development therefore hangs in the balance given the fact that the top echelons of our society are sitting on their backsides.
In Northeastern, making politics work for development is apparently a hard nut to crack since political leaders spend more energy and interest in fulfilling their own personal agendas. With this kind of unmitigated management crisis in our three counties, we will ever be dealing with a tangled web of economic, political and social disasters every passing year.
With the current disturbing experience with our region’s politicians, leadership is no longer a calling to transform communities but rather an investment to gain wealth at the expense of the public. Poor leaders have created a space for wasteful spending in public institutions, a conundrum of ineffective county governments and political cartelism that depicts a society that is economically, politically, socially and morally fraying at the edges.
Poor performance
Records are clear about the performance of Northeastern counties where accounts of widespread mismanagement and embezzlement of public funds makes the evening story of every household in the marginal region. That means corruption is not only practiced in wholesale but has been accepted just as common daily occurrences within our community.
We cannot talk about development at a time when public service delivery is in limbo. People are running away from the three counties seeking salvation and opportunities in the city of Nairobi. We have a huge number of internally displaced professionals as a result of unabated economic mischance, an offshoot of perpetual mismanagement engineered and supervised by local politicians.
Our counties are trasnforming into places of doom full of hungry people, malnourished children and beleaguered families. The worsening trend of social and economic erosion is a powerful indication of a systematic collapse of leadership that is not bothered about the vain and pain majority of people are going through.
In a nut shell posterity for the region is getting blurry as leaders suffering from puerile illusion hold the nod. With this, many mothers and fathers will walk to home talking to themselves in sheer depression and cursing the day they stood for hours voting for a leader they thought would bring at least a one-time respite from their suffering.
Underrated, neglected and marginalised, residents feel they are falling into an abyss of underdevelopment where the anticipated dividends of devolution have been replaced by parochial, short-term self-concerns over real problems. The ensuing economic and social predicament breeds unending suffering with leaders caring more about their own bellies than that of about two million people.
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Abu Husna is a resident analyst for Smart Muslim. If you have topical analysis articles kindly do send them to the editor@smartmuslim.co.ke
