For too long, Mandera’s potential has been throttled by an airstrip situated inside a military outpost. We cannot claim to be a rising county while our only link to the capital is a sorry state runway tucked behind barbed wire. The Karo Airport project is not just a collection of hangars and tarmac, it is the heartbeat of the Mandera Triangle. By positioning ourselves as the strategic hub connecting Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, we aren’t just building an airport, we are building a regional superpower. To reject this is to choose poverty over prosperity.
The claim that Karo is the exclusive, ancestral grazing land of a single community is a convenient fiction that ignores the documented history of our soil. Historical records and the lived memory of our elders confirm that the Karo zone has long been inhabited and utilized by a mosaic of communities, specifically the minority groups who have anchored this region for generations. No single clan holds a title deed to Mandera’s future. Land is a resource for the many, not a political bargaining chip for the few. We must stop using pastoralism as a shield to hide narrow sectarian interests.
There is a glaring, bitter hypocrisy currently on display. We cannot, in one breath, decry “historical marginalization” and demand development from the national government, and in the next breath, sabotage the most significant infrastructure project in our county’s history. It is even more disheartening to see “protests” in the streets while private negotiations take place in Nairobi, with certain groups reportedly demanding 45% of the spoils before a single stone is laid. Progress is for all of Mandera, not a quota to be auctioned off to the highest bidder behind closed doors.
As a daughter of the soil, I stand with the progressive alliance that refuses to be held hostage by entitlement. We are the majority of the taxpayers, the majority of the traders, and the majority of the dreamers in this county. We will not allow the Karo project be derailed by those who would rather see Mandera remain a dusty outpost than a bustling international gateway. It is time to choose. Do we want a county that serves the cabal that monopolised the Airlines and mandera route or a county that serves every citizen?
