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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to support this Motion. I want to appreciate and thank the Committee Members for deciding to go and do fact finding. As a person who comes from the region, I was shocked by the allegations that were doing rounds. The Committee was informed about the situation of the region. The main challenges were issues of insecurity, poverty, shortage of food, unemployment, poor infrastructure, poor communication, refugee influx from neigbouring countries, hostile environment and historical injustices. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to address myself on two issues about the main challenges. One is insecurity. I think the Committees were told about insecurity in the region. I, however, tend to disagree with that because with the failed state of Somalia where there has been no Government for the last 19 years, North Eastern Province has been a very stable, peaceful and secure region. Even the Interpol Report indicated that Garissa is the most peaceful town in South and Eastern Africa. This is an issue that made us very happy and we want to set the record straight. Issues of insecurity touch our hearts as the people from that region. We are saddened when people talk of insecurity when we know we are more peaceful and more secure than even Nairobi, the capital city of this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to address the issue of poverty. I feel poverty is something that was systematically organized by the Government. The Government deliberately marginalized that part of the country. This was systematic because if you do not give proper services to the region, the Government must own up, come up with programmes and projects that will holistically address those issues. We know that we have a lot of potential in the region that can transform even the country. We would really like the Government to look keenly into the poverty issue in the region. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to read a part of this report, which says that:- âThe Government should carry out an audit exercise in order to establish the refugee status of all persons in the refugee camps, and action should be taken against those Kenyans found to have registered themselves as refugees in the camps.â I want to disagree with this point completely because those Kenyans who have gone to those refugee camps had reasons to do so. Earlier, they have told us about the challenges that exist in North Eastern Province, namely, unemployment, poverty, insecurity and environmental challenges. Then as one of the recommendations, they tell us that those innocent Kenyans who went to those refugee camps because of food will be punished. It is a shame for Kenyans to lose their identity, go and pose as refugees because of food. I disagree with this point because I do not want action to be taken against these innocent Kenyans. They did not go there out of choice. It was because of the circumstances in the region. Circumstances forced them to go to the refugee camps so that they could get basic needs like food, health, water and shelter. That is why Kenyans went to the refugee camps. They went to get services because they felt that the services that are given at the refugee camps are better than those available to the host communities. That is why they went to those camps. That is a point that I want us to address. I want us to talk keenly on that point because it will affect innocent Kenyans. I am happy that the story of the recruitment of our young Kenyans to be trained to go and fight in Somalia has come out very clearly. When that allegation was going round, as a mother from the region, it touched me. I felt very bad because that would give us a bad image and problems in the future as a region. The Committee has gone out and found out that those young men were not recruited by the Kenyan Government and this was just an allegation. That allegation has been cleared. I am very happy that no youth was recruited by the Kenya Government to go and fight Somali from this country. It was a very important issue that the community has taken up and I must take this chance to congratulate the Committee for unearthing the truth and bringing it to the surface. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have talked about issues of identity cards many times in this House. We do not have a solution to date. An identity card is the basic identity of an individual in this country. For you to be identified as a Kenyan, you are supposed to have an identity card. It has become a pain in the region. The people of North Eastern Province cannot acquire identity cards, but people from other countries can easily be issued with national identity cards. The Provincial Administrationâs suspension of issuance of identity cards was a violation of human rights. They violated the rights of innocent Kenyans by suspending the issuance of identity cards. It is its responsibility, as an arm of the Government, to vet and look into the issues and see who is a genuine Kenyan and who is not. We cannot just be punished for the mistakes of the Government. If the Government is not functioning, then you cannot punish innocent Kenyans because officers failed to do what they are supposed to do as civil servants in this country. I also want to talk about road blocks. It is very clear that we have many road blocks. Some road blocks are good because they enhance security in this country. However, many of them are income generating activities. It is the police who have deliberately put those roadblocks in place so that they can in turn get âresourcesâ from the people of Kenya. Somebody travelling from Mandera to Garissa passes through more than 100 roadblocks on the way. When you get to Garissa, there is the main roadblock at the bridge on River Tana. When you cross the bridge, the police and other Government officials harass everybody. Everybody is made to disembark from buses and other vehicles. They are then checked left, right and centre. It is only fair that we know about this matter. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are keen about the security of this country. We want to be secure because if we do not have peace anywhere, everybody is affected. So, for us, we need the police to decently handle the people. If somebody makes a mistake, collective punishment should not be meted out to the entire community. Every society in this country has a criminal. When we talk of a criminal, we mean individual criminals. That individual criminal should be punished. People should not take the law into their own hands. Justice must be given to every individual in this country. I also want to talk about the issue of stereotypes, in the sense that everybody from Northern Kenya is regarded as a bandit or cattle rustler. There are all sorts of names people from that region are called by other Kenyans. That is something which should be long gone. Now that we have a new Constitution, which has comprehensive provisions on the rights of individuals, we want people to be very careful when they talk about certain regions or make reference to other people in certain regions of the country. The Preamble to the new Constitution says âWe, the people of Kenya, have given ourselves this Constitutionâ. That means I am Kenyan, and I am proud to be Kenyan. I am not a bandit, and I will not allow anybody to call me a bandit. That is why we want every Kenyan to be respected as individuals, and as societies, because individuals make societies and societies make the country. Without individuals and societies, we would not have a country as beautiful as Kenya. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to talk about illegal profiling of a society. That is something we cannot accept. It is a barbaric and outdated. It is not anywhere within the Constitution we have just given unto ourselves. So, the media and any other person who is doing profiling should do profiling that is right and which can promote the image of this country. We do not want profiling which will destroy us â profiling which will discourage investors from coming to this country. If you illegally profile certain groups of people by saying that they are Mungiki or this and that, you will be destroying the society and the image of this country. So, illegal profiling is something we will not allow to take root in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would also like to call upon the Government to lead from the front in sensitizing the international community. The international community has a stake in the issue of Somalia. If the international community, which is represented by the UN, the African Union, the IGADâ and other organisations does not do anything about Somalia, then we are not being serious as the international community."
}