On both sides of the ideological spectrum and our empirical capital, those who live in self-imposed bubbles are defined by whom they talk to, watch, and read, and so, a field intelligence note read “Governor Ali Roba of Mandera County is now a dividing factor in the regional geopolitics, besides being loose mouthed and an ethnic chauvinist”. Another assessment warns “Governor Roba and the 11 Members of Parliament from the region maybe benefiting financially from the crisis up North. Perhaps getting direct payments from FGS in Mogadishu or Qatar” to pursue a clannish agenda, and that is a threat to Kenya’s national security and regions geopolitics.
Border prefecture leadership is a new term or perhaps a synonym in our geopolitical monologues at SI. Of interest is the clash between the principle of loyalty to the motherland and sociopolitical interests by the border prefecture leadership. Our focus is North Eastern Prefecture of Kenya (NEP), a complex theater and a frontier. The Bulla Hawo flashpoint has made some leaders from the Mandera prefecture betray their principles and embrace the divisive Somali clannish ideology for political and personal-economic gain. Now these leaders are betraying their principles for the same reason. We missed the opportunity to prevent the first betrayal, the outcomes were catastrophic and birthed a geopolitical complex. But we can still fight to prevent this second act, otherwise the frontier prefecture politics will become a tragedy (a spherical social complex with far reaching negative geopolitical ramifications).
Al-Shabaabs Isaack Okola Group Pursuit of Social Control
Mandera County under the Governorship of Captain Ali Roba remains vulnerable to terror attacks orchestrated by the Al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahideen, an indicator there’s little investment by the leadership in countering violent extremism. One of the most notorious Shabaab al-Mujahideen gangs is the Isaack Okola gang, a jabha unit of the terror group whose core objective is to achieve social control due to the regions weak ethnic and socio-religious leadership. When terrorists goal is social control, weak local leadership facilitate the surge. When the local ethno-religious system is weak or fractured to effectively address the vice local people will either live in fear or seek protection from non-state actors, terrorists. This is terrorist’s strategy of intimidation, a very overwhelming social threat. Okola seems well versed with the County Government dealings with local clans and their patrons. Okola is tasked with intimidating clans and businessmen who get construction business in the region. Those who fail to pay certain fees are targeted. Their non-local staff are killed and the construction equipment and other logistical equipment’s are destroyed. Such incidents were on the rise between August 2019 and early 2020. There is a link between Roba leadership and these terrorist events either direct or via proxy. It is an attempt to facilitate terrorist’s pursuit of social control which is subsequently used to further hegemonic political interests for clans posterity.
Treason or Conflict of Clan Geo-Location?
Bulla Hawo, a contested frontier town lies along the common border line. It is a business hub, a transit point, and a critical geopolitical outpost. Governor Roba has become outspoken against Government of the Republic of Kenya with regard the small frontier town. Apart from taking sides, he has shown hostility to Jubbaland State Security Forces and its Admin officials. The principles of nationalism are deeply embedded in the loyalty pledge to the motherland and it is part of a nations values. Of concern is how these narratives by such leadership tilts geopolitics. When you look at Governor Roba et al increasingly fantastic claims — backed by insubstantial stories — about Kenya Military connections to Jubbaland, you don’t find any sense but you’ll notice the bias, something akin to a wilderness of mirrors or so. It gives FGS a lifeline to continue its pursuit of political influence back home during an election year and tilting the geopolitical scales in the region.
Look at the larger picture of the modern frontier prefecture leadership. Shouldn’t they be more patriotic and nationally-conservative? The only reason Roba et al have not burned themselves to cinders is that the major news media does not clearly report what they’re saying, because it’s even more bizarre. This lack of principles and nationalism is not only wanting but begs the question “what’s their intent?” Their goals have no broad support and many of their proposals are from the Left fringe, all costly and risky. Have they abandoned patriotism?
Cessationist’s in Disguise?
Perhaps Roba and his musketeers are cessationists and part of the Somalia’s irredentism movement. The Al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahideen has consistently claimed North Eastern Kenya borderlands are territories of the Islamic Emirati, an extremist’s ideology shared by the Islamic States terrorists. The cessation talk is often pushed on microblogging site ‘Twitter’ by persons linked to the Governor and his 11 musketeers, and the terror group Shabaab al-Mujahideen.
Why is the NEP Frontier leadership doing so many apparently self-destructive things? Our view at Strategic Intelligence is: they have developed epistemic closure: a self-contained social system in which people’s thinking is unaffected by criticism of their logic or fact by those outside the circle, and this courts trouble with the stalwarts of National Security and patrons of regions geopolitics. We know, this epistemic closure can be a source of solidarity and energy, much needed to fuse the terrorist’s strategy of social control and the clannish political hegemony goals, which include threats of cessation and complicity to terrorists outbidding. There’s some clustering, some form of posing, to be sure, but nobody acts like they really believe the folks on the other side of the border are insidious hellspawn. The pose is for the benefit of the base, and that’s treasonous.
This is baseless information with no facts.
The author of such articles is hired goons who lacks basic information about Mandera county leadership position on terrorisim. Be sure warned!
Very good job and thanks for sharing such a good
blog.
King regards,
Thompson Duke