HON. MUMINA BONAYA'S SECURITY ASSURANCE TO THE PEOPLE OF THE NORTH.

  

Hon. Mumina Bonaya at Citizen TV .

Almost every survey that has been carried out in recent times to find out what issue greatly worries residents of Northern Kenya  security – or rather insecurity – has consistently topped the list.

One recent survey showed that 64 per cent of Northerners  rate insecurity as their greatest concern; much higher than unemployment, lack of proper housing, water and sanitation.

Personally too, this is an issue that is very close to my heart; as a resident of Isiolo, a parent and a businessman. It does not matter where we live in the Isiolo  from the so-called leafy suburbs to the informal settlements often referred to as slums – but the question of security is always in our minds. 

Residents of these areas lack formal and rightful access to land, housing and essential services. These factors greatly contribute to lowering the quality of living and naturally become breeding grounds for crime and insecurity.

By addressing the problems of high illiteracy, we will be indirectly but significantly addressing the problem of insecurity in Isiolo and the Northern frontier counties at Large.

Good urban planning will considerably reduce crime rate and insecurity in the northern parts of the country and  with good urban planning also comes a balanced distribution of population ensuring this region boroughs to only accommodate the optimum population that can safely be contained in that given region.

Negative ethnic politics and religious extremism  is another causative factor to insecurity within the northern parts of the country because many politicians in the country rely on bedrock of ethnic support to survive, they naturally avoid addressing the issue of negative ethnic politics.

Right now the ratio of policemen to citizens in Kenya is way below the requisite international benchmark.

We have a policeman to citizen ratio of 1: 1,150 while the international ratio is 1:450.  This means that our policemen and women are overworked, over-stretched and of course underpaid. So long as the National Government is willing to work on improving this sector. Kenya will be peaceful.