Good people, ethnic profiling of Kenyan-Somalis is retrogressive
Some Kenyan-Somalis walk in floodwaters after a downpour at the Dadaab Refugee Complex, in the North-eastern part of Kenya in this past photo.
Ethnicity has always been our pitfall and the fact that it is getting refined and burnished by the government, without a single thought to the public perception, is a worrying trend.
Tribal consciousness is fast overtaking national
awareness.
It’s a no-brainer that senior appointments in President Ruto’s administration reflect a deliberate effort to favour certain ethnicities.
It’s a narrow and shameful strategy that past Presidents have employed, filling the public service with members of their tribes and communities viewed as ‘friendly’to the government.
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That view has always put the rest of Kenyans in the place of the ‘enemy’ of the state.
President Ruto appears to be amplifying tribalism, cronyism and nepotism in state appointments.
Article 232 of the Constitution demands that the public service must be representative of the diverse Kenyan communities and
that adequate and equal opportunity in appointment, training and advancement, at all levels of the public service to men and women, members of all ethnic communities and persons with disabilities.
Such appointments should be based on merit, equity and diversity.
This does not suggest that Ruto’s appointees are incompetent
and undeserving, but all regions should be represented to ensure inclusivity.
The nomination of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Noordin Haji, for the position of Director-General, National Intelligence Service, drew criticism from some Kenyans unhappy with the fact that several officials from one community are calling the shots in our security organs.
From the tone of their criticism, however, one could easily see that their bellyache was not about the unfair distribution of jobs, but mere prejudice against Kenyans of Somali descent.
The scapegoating of Kenyan-Somalis whenever there’s a national security problem has fuelled an unhealthy relationship between
them and other Kenyans.
We must nip this narrative in the bud and stifle its growth.
The census results of 2019 were scrutinised with toothpicks and there were silent murmurings over the growth of the Somali population, which seemed to be too steep for the liking of many staunch bigots.
There are many postings on social media of how the Somali are taking over the economic space of some ethnicities. They do not see the honesty and organisation of Somali entrepreneurs that is drawing more customers to them and away from their own cheeky, sleight of hand business transactions.
There is a long history of negative portrayal of Kenyan-Somalis as “terrorists, pirates, refugees and foreigners”.
Their marginalisation began in the pre-colonial ‘error’, and was catalysed by the Shifta War in northern Kenya between 1963 and 1976. The region was subsequently alienated and remains
one of the least developed.
The cruel treatment would later result in one of Kenya’s darkest moments when, in 1984, President Moi ordered the army to
defuse a clan conflict in Wajir.
Instead, the soldiers allegedly killed 5,000 people.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks at the Westgate Mall, the government launched ‘Operation Usalama Watch’, where
authorities swept areas of Nairobi dominated by Kenyan-Somalis to identify illegal immigrants.
The operation was riddled with rights abuses.
Security forces raided homes and shops, where they reportedly extorted residents. For Kenyan-Somalis, the
notion of belonging has been put into question for decades.
While nobody questions their link to the north-eastern region, ethnic bigots question whether or not this makes them ‘Kenyan’. How absurd.
They have the right to be Kenyans without proving their citizenship. Reading through Prof Ngugi wa Thiongo’s diary, Detained, we realise he was there in jail with many other prisoners of conscience, a good number of whom were of Somali origin.
The professor does not tell us why those people were held at the President’s pleasure, but we get the feeling why.
While we are also opposed to the skewed appointments, we do not take the angle of pressing down the victim. Ethnic profiling and stereotyping must stop.
If it were the ‘friendly’ people from the King’s backyard at the helm of our security organs, we wouldn’t expect as much apprehension and annoying sketching of a community in such
stone-age manner.
