Reading the Sunday Nation yesterday, one can only sympathise with the sentiments expressed by columnist Ahmednasir Abdullahi, regarding the cancellation of census results from the northern parts of Kenya by the government.
Be that as it may, I think the government is not totally to blame for what happened. True, looking at the figures that were quoted by the government regarding the number of Somalis in Kenya, they leave a lot to be desired. Something was totally amiss in those figures. The increase in numbers from the last census cannot be logically explained.
This was happening in the backdrop of media revelations last week of a syndicate of unscrupulous government officials and some individuals who are smuggling people from Daadab refugee camp in the former North Eastern province into Kenya. The reports indicated that as many as 10 people leave the camps every day on their way to Nairobi.
If this is true, then this is the reason why the figures from the North Eastern did not add up. Ahmednasir and other Somalis need to appreciate that dealing with Somalis from Somalia is a real nightmare for the government. Rather than blaming the government for what is happening, it would have been in order for leaders of Somali origin to come up with a way of working with the government to help deal with the threat posed by illegal entry of Somalis into the country. Pointing figures at the government does not help at all.
A few years ago, I traveled from one of the refugees camps in northern Kenya and what I witnessed was shocking!! Refugees from that particular refugee camp were openly bribing policemen on the road blocks to be allowed into the Kenya. If this was happening then, I have every reason to believe that the problem has only escalated in recent years.
The Somali refugee issue is a time bomb waiting to happen. People like Ahmednasir understand well the implications of allowing foreigners to walk in and out of Kenya without restriction. This situation is made even worse by the threats that are coming from the al-Shabaab in Somalia against the Kenyan people.
The government has every right to respond to protect the interests of the majority of Kenyans. This may not go down well with people of Somali origin, but this is the most logical thing that could be done. It is better to delay and redo the exercise in a more elaborate and careful manner than to rush in announcing the results just because the government does not want to annoy the Somalis. What the government is doing is for the good of all Kenyans.
It is amazing that any time that something happens which people from the northern part of Kenya feel strongly about, they are very fast to condemn the government, but when people who are associated with that region commit crimes, they are slow to condemn them. Even after al-Shabaab has issued several threats against Kenya, I have never heard of Kenyan Somalis speaking against that. They need to decide to whom they owe their allegiance.
It is an open secret today that many Somalis found in Eastleigh are not originally from Kenya. They are from some neighbouring countries, a majority from Somalia. Much as people like Ahmednasir may try to pretend that this is not happening, this is the truth. It is incumbent upon them to come up with their own solutions to the problem of refugees who are flooding this country.
We are all aware that the illegal entry into the country by foreign elements does not augur well for all of us, including the very people who may try to villify the government for the action that it took. The government took a drastic decision but which is necessary in the prevailing circumstances. Ahmednasir cannot convince me that he doesn’t know of a Somali in Kenya today who entered the country illegally. Being a lawyer and law-abiding citizen, has he ever reported any of such cases to the authorities? Ahmednasir, please appreciate the situation and help come up with viable solutions for the refugee problem
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