As per Official Estimates, Mandera County has a population of 1.1 million people, mainly ethnic Somalis categorised into four clan groupings. These are the Garre, the Murulle and the Degodia clans, as well as the “Corner Tribes,” a grouping of the smaller clans. After Somalia’s collapse in 1991, a sizable population of the Marehan clan from Somalia also arrived in Mandera and has been seeking protections and resettlement. Many clans like Murules have intermarried with Marehan and therefore are part and parcel of Mandera County.
For ages, elders in Mandera have largely been the ones making political decisions on behalf of the people and determining who vies for crucial positions during elections. But this is bound to change as youths in the county now seek to bring a different narrative by supporting their own in the next General Elections.
In a bid to change the political landscape, a group of young people drawn from different clans and sub-clans residing within and without Mandera County are fronting and spearheading new plans for Mandera Gubernatorial seat in 2022.
The Garre clan, being the majority in Mandera county in terms of clan affiliations, are normally left to take the gubernatorial seat against the other three clans. The Garre Community is viewed differently as not pure somalis and this always plays out in Mandera.
But that is coming to an end if we follow the startegies being deployed towards 2022.
Two of the clans, Murule and Degodia along with 'other somalis' are planning to overthrow Garre dominance in Mandera County Government and installing one of them. They are also planning to share seats with other clans to destroy the 'dominance' of Garres in the County Government.
Those Eyeing the Gubernatorial Seat come from Murule Clan as well as Degodia and their combined votes including other somalis will trounce the Garre votes in Mandera County.
Turn the tide
In an exclusive interview with the Clans representatives and Youth of The said Mandera clans, they say time is ripe for the tide to be turned against the norm in Mandera county. They accuse Garre of completely disregarding appointment of County Administration and misappropriation of County Resources.
Mandera County gets Ksh 10,000,000,000 (Ten Billion) approx $100 Million Each year and no tangible Infrastructure has been built for the past 7 years. infact, it is rumoured that County Administrators have created many Millionaires within a short time.
The Clans youthful movement has since formed a secretariat in every clan and have already informed most of their elders about the intention of the near future. The Elections of Kenya are slated in 2022. The Youth, aim to involve their Elders to now plan several conference aimed at discussing how to ensure their impact is felt.
They are planning to sit and discuss on these issues as we progress to 2022.
The clans says the Garre County administartion and their political elites and elders in the county have always overlooked them in spite of their numerical strength in terms of votes.
According to clans, they can easily trounce and get the Gubernatorial seat while reserving the Senate to the Garre Community. They can share other spoils of the election between other clans.
Already The Garre Council of Elders have plans to back for governorship between Senator Mohamed Maalim Mohamud, County Assembly Speaker Mohamed Khalif, Mr Feisal Abdirahman, Mr Yussuf Mohamed Issack alias Yusuf Rafiki and Education CAS Hassan Noor Hassan.
“The competition is open and anyone is free to declare his candidature. We shall only declare what shall be brought to us from the sub-clan level,” said Mr Yussuf Alinur, the chairman of the Garre elders' council.
One Aspirant from the Degodia Community recently told us, The Garre Chairman, doesn't even mention the Competition other clans in Mandera can pose to their Gubernatorial plans. That is like giving themselves the seat.
