Small wars in Marsabit County: devolution and political violence in northern Kenya

Abstract

When the elections of 2013 devolved budgetary and legislative powers to 47 counties in Kenya, there was nationwide relief when they passed off peacefully. The new county governments settled down to bargaining over local powers and appointments, delivering on their new institutional mandates, spending money and dealing with recentralisation manoeuvres. Now with the 2017 elections looming, the question has been raised, will there be violence? Based on qualitative interviews with citizens of the northern town of Marsabit shortly after the 2013 elections, this article presents citizens’ views on how devolution affected political competition, including how familiar repertoires of violence were used to influence not only the vote but also the construction of the new country government. To explain what concerned voters in the newly devolved county, the article explores the role played by colonially constituted ‘ethnicity’ in control of land and citizenship in the pastoralist north of Kenya and in the evolution of politics and the state after independence. It shows how the new configuration of power brought by devolution in 2013 has not yet resolved people’s feelings of deep insecurity over territorial tenure. It offers insight into the task faced by devolved institutions in relation to land, adding texture to current literature on the politics of devolution.

Keywords:

• Kenya
• devolution
• ethnicity
• land
• citizenship

Acknowledgements

This article draws on research funded by the UK Department for International Development through an accountable grant to the Institute of Development Studies [grant number 202830-101]. The author would also like to thank Professor Mariz Tadros and Dr Jeremy Allouche, the editors of this special edition; Alastair Scott-Villiers for insight and advice; Dr Tom Ondicho, Diana Ndung’u, Nathaniel Kabala, Tumal Orto, Molu Kullo, Grace Lubaale for the field research, and the peer reviewers for their invaluable suggestions in refining and situating the arguments of the article.

Notes

1. Cheeseman et al., ‘Decentralisation in Kenya’.

2. Ghai, ‘Devolution, Restructuring the Kenyan State’.

3. Oyugi, ‘Ethnicity in the Electoral Process’; Muigai, ‘Jomo Kenyatta and the Rise’; Bratton and Kimenyi, ‘Voting in Kenya’; Berman et al., ‘Patrons, Clients, and Constitutions’; Khadiagala, ‘Political Movements and Coalition Politics in Kenya’.

4. Carrier and Kochore, ‘Navigating Ethnicity and Electoral Politics’; Opondo, ‘Ethnic Politics and Post-election Violence’; Bedasso, ‘Ethnicity, Intra-elite Differentiation and Political Stability’; D’Arcy and Cornell, ‘Devolution and Corruption in Kenya’.

5. Cheeseman et al., ‘Decentralisation in Kenya’.

6. Chome, ‘“Devolution is only for Development”?’.

7. On the revenue sharing formula in force in 2013, see for example: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/devolution-and-resource-sharing-in-kenya/

8. Government of Kenya, Commission on Revenue Allocation, County Budgets 2013–2014.

9. McPeak et al., Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy; Scott-Villiers et al., A Study of Education and Resilience in Kenya’s Arid Lands.

10. Kochore, ‘The Road to Kenya?’.

11. Hassan, ‘Continuity despite Change’; Cheeseman et al., ‘Democracy and Its Discontents’; Cornell and D’Arcy, ‘Plus ça Change?’; Cheeseman et al., ‘Decentralisation in Kenya’; D’Arcy and Cornell, ‘Devolution and Corruption in Kenya’.

12. Cheeseman et al., ‘Decentralisation in Kenya’, 30.

13. Boone, Property and Political Order in Africa.

14. Here I interpret the term property to mean material and ideational goods over which a person has a measure of control and which is recognised and upheld by others. In the case of pastoralist land as property, indigenous thinking suggests that people are the property of the land rather than the other way around. Pastoralists often speak of themselves as custodians of land, a task for which they are rewarded with rain, peace and prosperity. It would follow then, that for them property means persons having a measure of control over the institutions that tend the property. It is these institutions that pastoralists are often fighting for.

15. Boone, Property and Political Order in Africa.

16. Baxter et al., Being and Becoming Oromo.

17. Letai, Kenya’s Land Reform Agenda, 2.

18. Boone, Property and Political Order in Africa,140.

19. Ibid., 29–30.

20. Cassanelli, ‘Opportunistic Economics of the Kenya-Somali Borderland’.

21. Haro et al., ‘Linkages Between Community, Environmental, and Conflict Management’.

22. Fratkin, ‘Seeking Alternative Livelihoods in Pastoralist Areas’.

23. The 2010 Constitution abolished the Provincial Administration and replaced it with the National Administration. This centralised body retains significant powers in relation to security, and since land and security issues are inevitably linked, the new constitution has not moved the locus of power away from this structure altogether.

24. Baxter et al., Being and Becoming Oromo, 158.

25. Khadiagala, ‘Boundaries in Eastern Africa’; Watson, “Hardening of Lines”’; Boye and Kaarhus, ‘Competing Claims and Contested Boundaries’.

26. County control of land in areas like Marsabit where collective land use is predominant, was further complicated Community Land Bill was moving through parliament that would shift the locus of authority yet again. It was finally passed in 2016.

27. Branch, Kenya, Between Hope and Despair, 14–15.

28. Muigai, ‘Jomo Kenyatta and the Rise’, 201.

29. Sihanya, ‘Presidency and Public Authority’, 6.

30. Anderson, ‘Yours in Struggle for Majimbo’, 564.

31. Ogot, ‘Politics of Populism’; Muigai, ‘Jomo Kenyatta and the Rise’; Branch, Kenya, Between Hope and Despair.

32. Boone, ‘Land Conflict and Distributive Politics in Kenya’, 78.

33. Throup and Hornsby, Multi-party Politics in Kenya.

34. United Nations, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur’.

35. Oyugi, ‘Politicised Ethnic Conflict in Kenya’; Ruteere, ‘More Than Political Tools’; Oblala, The 2012–2013 Kenyan Presidential Elections.

36. Jackson, ‘Sons of Which Soil?’.

37. Ibid.

38. Geschiere and Jackson, ‘Autochthony and the Crisis of Citizenship’.

39. Ibid., 3.

40. Ibid., 6.

41. Eaton, ‘Youth, Cattle Raiding, and Generational Conflict’.

42. Boone, Property and Political Order in Africa, 47; Carrier and Kochore, Navigating Ethnicity and Electoral Politics.

43. More on the method, findings and quotations can be found in Scott-Villiers et al., ‘Roots and Routes of Political Violence’.

44. Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2009 Census. Available at: http://www.knbs.or.ke/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=category&id=109:population-and-housing-census-2009&Itemid=599#.

45. Interview, Hula Hula, November 2013.

46. Interview, Marsabit town, November 2013.

47. Interview, Marsabit Town, November 2013.

48. Focus group, women, November 2013.

49. Ruteere and Pommerole, ‘Democratizing Security or Decentralizing Repression?’, 592.

50. http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/thecounties/article/2000090755/bandits-kill-two-lorry-drivers-at-notorious-spot; http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/thecounties/article/2000161323/children-killed-in-bandit-attack-at-loiyangalani

51. See, for example, KTN May 2016, interview with Frances Ole Kaparo, National Cohesion and Integration Commission. Available at: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ktnhome/video/watch/2000107727/francis-ole-kaparo-sheds-light-on-the-2013-marsabit-moyale-politically-incited-killings [Accessed 26 February 2017].

52. IRIN, Kenya, ‘Thousands Remain Displaced as Fighting Subsides in Moyale’, 28 January 2012. Available at: http://www.irinnews.org/report/94681/kenya-thousands-remain-displaced-as-fighting-subsides-in-moyale [Accessed 26 February 2018].

53. BBC, Ethiopia, ‘20,000 Flee Moyale Clashes—Red Cross’, 28 July 2012. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19028609 [Accessed 26 February 2018].

54. All Africa, Kenya, ‘Scores Dead in Renewed Moyale Clashes’, 28 August 2013. Available at: http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00026137.html [Accessed 26 February 2018].

55. See, for example, November 2013 Moyale Clashes Erupts Again, October 2013. Available at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ktn/?videoID=2000050867 [Accessed 26 February 2017].

And November 2013, More than 10 People Feared Dead in Moyale Clashes. Available at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ktnhome/video/watch/2000069259/more-than-ten-people-feared-dead-in-moyale-clashes [Accessed 26 February 2017].

All Africa, ‘Kenya—Nine Killed in Fresh Moyale Clashes’, 31 January 2014. Available at: http://allafrica.com/stories/201402030521.html [Accessed 26 February 2017].

56. Interviews, Marsabit town, November 2013.

57. Moyale Conflicts: the Actors, the Contests and the Interest. Available at: http://www.ardajila.com [Accessed 26 February 2017].

58. Interview, Marsabit, November 2013.

59. de Smedt, ‘“No Raila, No Peace!”’; Landau and Misago, ‘Who to Blame and Who to Gain?’; Ruteere et al., Missing the Point.

60. Focus group discussions, men, November 2013.

61. Interview, Marsabit town, November 2013.

62. Key informant discussions, Marsabit town, November 2013.

63. National Cohesion and Integration Commission. Available at: http://www.cohesion.or.ke/index.php/media-centre/news/144-unpacking-hate-speech-by-commissioner-milly-odongo

64. Interview, religious leader, Marsabit, November 2013.

65. Kagwanja, ‘Courting Genocide’.

66. Osborn, ‘Fuelling the Flames’.

67. Focus group, women, November 2013.

68. Bratton and Kimenyi, ‘Voting in Kenya’.

69. Carrier and Kochore, ‘Navigating Ethnicity and Electoral Politics’.

70. Control of land appears as an explanation as to why the violence persists in four of the seven focus group discussions, three of five key informant interviews and all the listening post discussions.

71. Focus group, men 1, 1 November 2013.

72. Listening post, women, 30 October 2013.

73. Focus group, men 3, 3 November 2013.

74. Scott-Villiers et al., A Study of Education and Resilience.

75. Galaty, ‘Land Grabbing in the Eastern African Rangelands’.

76. Kameri-Mbote et al., Ours By Right.

77. Boone, Property and Political Order in Africa, 309.

78. Republic of Kenya, Community Land Act, No 27 or 2016, Kenya Gazette Supplement no. 148. Available at: kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/CommunityLandAct_27of2016.pdf [Accessed 26 February 2017].