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{
    "id": 1200151,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1200151/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 97,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Isiolo South, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Bidu Mohamed",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "insecurity, livestock deaths and drought. Education-wise, it is amongst the constituencies which have been lagging behind. We have a good Constitution which talks about opportunities for everyone. Kenya belongs to all of us and we are all supposed to get equal opportunities of whatever is given out. That is what we are lacking in Isiolo South and the entire north. The worst part of the drought that is now ravaging the country starts from Isiolo County. In Kenya, we have four kinds of people: the agriculturalists, who are farmers; the fishermen around the lakes; the urban settlers and the pastoralists. The people who are most affected by the drought are the pastoralist communities who have received very minimal support from the successive government regimes. We hope that the new regime is going to focus on Isiolo South to the North because development is lacking in these areas. All the infrastructure we see in our neighbouring counties is not in Isiolo and beyond. On the insecurity issue, Isiolo might be the gateway to northern Kenya but one may think it is the Kenyan boundary. This is because we have all the military installations in Isiolo instead of them being on the Kenyan border. This stretches over to Garissa and Turkana. Why should we have military installations in Isiolo, which are supposed to be at the country’s border? This is why I attribute the insecurity in northern Kenya to some of the plans that were made at Independence, where military installations were placed at the centre instead of the border. Isiolo is always faced with insecurity. Porous borders have been a big issue there. Isiolo and the northern Kenya region should be changed by this regime. We have been marginalised since Independence. We expect that with the Constitution something has to change. However, with the way things are going, unless this is stopped, it is going to get worse. I am saying this because in the last Parliament, there was the issue of one man-one shilling-one vote and we were being blamed for low population. You cannot blame us when we live in an environment where it is a problem for women and men to reproduce compared to other areas because of the harsh environmental conditions. The Leader of the Majority Party has been the advocate of the one-man one-shilling one-vote. We have to discard that and help one another to develop. Counties which have been underdeveloped since Independence should be brought up to the level of those counties that are developed so that the development is visible. I am praying about this. We have land matters in Isiolo. The Northern Kenya rangelands are still under community land, which is supposed to belong to the communities of that county. The communities of that county are pastoralists and sometimes nomadic pastoralists. That does not mean that there are no people in those rangelands. They are there. As I said earlier, the insecurity that has been happening all through has something to do with resources and development. We have to think about it. The current Government should at least change the face of northern Kenya, starting with Isiolo South and Isiolo North. That is the gateway to the vast northern Kenya. Hon. Deputy Speaker, developments have come up. The Lamu Port-South Sudan- Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) Project is coming up, amongst other big projects earmarked for those areas but are we getting the right thing? If the Chinese who have been given the contracts bring their thousands of vehicles and casual labourers from outside to do the work, are we getting our share? That is the question we need to ask. With those few remarks, I thank the members of the public from Isiolo South who voted me in. I assure them that I will be there for them."
}