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So yesterday I came across an interview of a young man who escaped from Alshabab, the man said that he was in the NYS but after that he was back to poverty so when his cousin in Lamu told him he could get him a job paying 40k, the boy jumped at the offer and took off to where the cousin was , after about 3 months, the cousin took him to a place where about 200 young men were living and gave each one 10k , about a week later some private cars came and drove them to some remote place where they met armed militia who they walked with in some place that seemed miles away from civilization. They arrived a few days later at an Alshabab camp and started training immediately. They would be up by 4am and train till 6am. Military style training,carrying sacks of soil,handling all kinds weapons, after 2 years there, the boy , fell out with a commander and he was stabbed on the arm, after that ordeal he and one of the other Kenyans he had become close to began to plot their escape, if they were going to die , then they reasoned that theyd rather die fleeing than staying put at the camp. They walked for days, till they met an elderly man of Somali origin who took pity on them and helped them get to Mandera and then Garissa. The two fear police as much as they fear retaliatory attacks from Alshabab militants.
The greatest human drive is that of self preservation. By the time a humanbeing is ready to not just die but kill themselves alot has gone wrong. There have been estimates that in Kenya there are about 11 - 14 Million unemployed yet well educated youths, and the number grows steadily with every graduation. I work in a building with an employment bureau for Middle East jobs , on a daily basis the place is parked with young people seeking jobs in the Middle East inspite of all the horror stories highly publicized in the media of the dangers of working in the Arabian Peninsula. Kenyan youths in the droves are economically dispossesed and the situation gets more and more dire with every year. Awhile back one Maina Njenga began a kind of commune with his father for disposseesed Kikuyu youths many internally displaced from the Rift Valley. The commune was in Nyahururu, the cult gave these young destitute men who had lost all hope, a purpose,belonging and work. I need not tell you what happened with the group that had thousands and thousands of men and began to actively recruit boys who had dropped out of school upon realising that their better educated kin suffered the same fate of poverty and unemployment.
Youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb, you can imagine the kind of havoc just 1% of these youths can wreck. Awhile back there were sporadic incidents of very young men who would hang around high end neighborhoods and just shoot people driving luxury cars. Probably as a way to vent their frustrations about their deep despair economically. It was quelled pretty fast thankfully. Terror groups have observed these large group of Kenyans that are being left behind even as we build ports and focus on the blue economy. This is a group that is a reservoir of not only terror groups but any political faction that would be interested in forming militia groups to secure or obtain political power. If you look at all the countries that have become destabilized both in the 3rd world and the 1st world such as gangs in various neighborhoods, lack of gainful employment, hope,identity and purpose have been the main cause. In a capitalist society, those without economic power have no identity and no purpose. Our African society that accommodated all kinds of people in all socio economic strata no longer exists. Poor youths have no sense of belonging.
Youth is a time for great idealism and hope for the future, this is why the most dangerous person is a youth who is in despair and who has lost all hope. A young person with nothing left to lose is a very dangerous entity. The terror groups have identified the Achilles Heel of our country , the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor, they have now changed tact from attacking common mwanainchi to attacking places considered for the elite. Ofcourse the majority of people working in those places are the common mwanainchi. However by attacking high end hotels and malls, their solidarity with the poor can be hyped even as they recruit. The other objective is to make our country to be perceived as being as dangerous as a war zone. I mean if a young man who survived 9’11 , probably the worst terror attack of our time but died in a terror attack in Kenya, the message the world gets is that , Kenya is a dangerous place, actually more dangerous than being in ground zero during 9’11. For tourists, who have an option of South Africa or Tanzania, your guess is as good as mine about the choices they’re likely to make for their holiday destination. It is not coincidental that its the high end malls and hotel chains being targeted , these places , are the places , tourists are most likely to frequent .
The fact that youth ministry is lumped with sports and is given to persons who can not do much to improve the lot of youths in Kenya is very telling of where the government has placed the youth in their list of priorities. Its very painful for parents to educate children to university level,some parents even selling their last assets like land to get an education then for that child to end up as a suicide bomber. I will not claim to have any solutions to this problem but as a concerned citizen I pray that those who can do something will before things get out of hand. I would also pray about this issue of radicalization because there must be demonic influence for anybody to kill their fellow citizens for an ambiguous cause of a militia group in another country. As we have seen in the past, this terror group unlike Mungiki or Sabaot Land Defence does not recruit school dropouts. Like many terror organisations in the world they boast of very highly educated membership. There are doctors and lawyers and media practitioners and pilots and engineers in their ranks. Just like Alqueeda with Al Mawi who was a surgeon and Osama a militant trained to the highest echelons of world class military intelligence. Even as we pray against that spirit of terror, we must pray for the doors we have opened, such a corruption that has costed many,many Kenyans an opportunity to make an honest livelihood. You can not pray against thieves and then not mend a tundu which is in your fence. As the wahenga nenad, asiyeziba ufa,atajenga ukuta - and I dont mean the one Trump plans to build on the Mexican border. I am a very patriotic person and I love my country and my countrymen and that is why ukweli lazima usemwe. We can do something to ensure our youths are not easy targets for radicalisation or recruitment into militia groups that could destabilize our haven and oasis of peace. It is a great achievement as an African nation when many even the older people can say we have never seen war since we were born. Let us fight anything and everything that could threaten that peace we hold in trust for the coming generations.