For Kenyan-Somalis, One Bridge Defines Their Belonging

I have always wanted to write about what I face, about what we — Somalis travelling from north eastern Kenya — face when coming to the capital Nairobi.
In August this year, I travelled from Nairobi to Garissa to visit my family for a week. The journey from the capital to Garissa in north eastern Kenya was smooth. After my visit ended, it was time for me to bid them goodbye and travel back to Nairobi.
If you have visited Garissa town at any one time of your life, there is a bridge just before you enter the main town. That is the first police roadblock in a series of police checkpoints when exiting the town.

It has become a routine for Somalis in this part of the country that every time, before entry and exit into the town, they must prove their “Kenyanness” to the men in blue staffing the area.
The bridge is not far away from Garissa. Here, you do not wait for the law enforcers to shout that you get out of the bus. It is normal for everyone to get off.
When we left Garissa and reached the bridge, we all get off, everybody clutching their identity cards in their hands. Sometimes though, for a Somali, a Kenyan identification card is not enough of a proof that he or she is a Kenyan.
We line up to show our IDs to an officer. Sometimes your own ID card can betray you. The officer might judge that the picture on the ID card does not resemble you at all. Only a moment of prayer can help you.
After almost half an hour of proving that we are indeed Kenyans, born and bred in this country, the driver hits the road again. The bus conductor then starts going round confirming everyone’s bus ticket. Some travelers start making stories, while some like me are dead silent, observing everybody else just to get more content for this story.
Through one of the bus windows, the heads of hardworking herdsmen catch my eye, accompanied by young boys with frail bodies. The sight of them working very hard in this hot climate, walking miles in search of water, pulls humility deep inside my heart. It reminds me to be thankful for all the things that I have.
The journey goes on.
Less than two kilometers later, we arrive at the next roadblock. The police signal the bus to stop for a quick inspection. I look at the faces of my fellow commuters. They are not amused.
This time, though, we do not have to get out of our seats. The “good” officers were gentle enough to climb up the bus and do what they do best.
They shout, “ID mkononi,” IDs in your hands, as they enter the bus. They go round confirming everyone has an ID.
An old man expresses his dissatisfaction with the cops. He mutters to his fellow passenger that the cops would do anything to get money from you. They can even proclaim that you have not given them an ID even if you have. He gets quiet as the police approach where we are seated.
The officer takes an ID belonging to an old woman sitting three seats away from mine. “Is this your ID?” the officer asks the woman who looked like she was in her 50s. She did not know Swahili and a young man volunteered to act as a translator.
“Off course it is mine. I cannot hand you an ID which is not mine,” the man told the officer after he listened to the woman. The officer was not satisfied with her response and so he called her outside.
Once outside, they talked for a while before letting her go. What transpired between the two? What was the officer told or given to let her go?
She came back furious with dozens of complaints. They took 2,000 Kenyan shillings (about 20 dollars) from me, and I have an ID, she said. Everyone joined the conversation as the bus started to accelerate.
Some of the passengers started forcing out similar ordeals they encountered while travelling. The look on their faces shows the anger and level of tiredness they have against the men and women tasked to guide and protect them.
The conductor too chimes into the exchange and airs his views on the matter. If you weigh the options, he said, it is better for you to give out the cash to avoid unnecessary delays.
Whoa! That statement makes me indignant. Why should I pay a trained law enforcement official to show that I am innocent?
This statement, shared by the bus conductor, buries me into deep thought. Should one have to bribe a police officer every time they come into contact in a bus on the Nairobi-Garissa road? Do the officers know that it is a crime to demand bribes?
By now, we are approaching the dry Ukambani area. Mud houses and poor residents carrying jerry cans looking for water welcome us.
Everyone is quiet in the bus. A kid who was crying when the journey started is now dead asleep.
After an hour or so, another roadblock is mounted in the middle of nowhere. This time the police do not come in. Instead, the conductor goes out to talk to them. In less than two minutes, the officer signals the driver to continue.
Remember the earlier incident of the old woman? When the conductor told us it is better to slap them with a bribe to save time? I judged that the bus conductor walked the talk. He dished out a small amount of money to do away with the problem.
Since I started travelling in and out of the town of Garissa, I have never seen a police officer doubt the ID card of a non-Somali. Every time they enter the bus, they emphasize on the Somali commuters. For Somalis, you are guilty until proven innocent.
A non-Somali man who was sitting next to me whispers to me that the police are useless nowadays. They do not protect us, he says, we protect them by giving them money every day.
We encounter another police checkpoint just near the town of Thika, which is located just over 40 kilometers out of Nairobi. The officers do not enter inside the bus, but the same routine continues: the conductor exits the bus, shakes hands with one of the officers, and we are allowed to continue.
This act of give-take-go makes me angry. The Kenyan Police’s motto, “Utumishi Kwa Wote,” or “Service to All”, clearly has a different meaning to those who wear the uniforms emblazoned with those words.
As we enter Thika, we are stopped yet at another roadblock. One would think they have been there the whole day, waiting for aliens who are entering a well-guarded territory.
I have been to other towns in Kenya, but the experience is very different. Those of us from the north eastern part of this nation are treated less equal through roadblocks situated in strategic places. The experience is humiliating. They make you feel that you do not belong, a second-class citizen who illegally migrated to this country.
A journey, which normally takes less than seven hours, took us close to 10 hours because of numerous roadblocks, which are there to give us a reminder that we, Kenyan-Somalis, are still not yet Kenyans.
As we entered Nairobi’s Eastleigh area, where the Garissa booking offices are located, I felt degraded by the same men and women working for a government that has manifested repeatedly to unite all Kenyans and do away with tribalism.
For now, I am left with nothing but with the words to express my frustration. I dream of a Kenya where the feeling of traveling to Kiambu is the same feeling I feel when commuting to and from Garissa.
The days of bigotry and cheap stereotypes are long gone. After all, we all hold the same IDs, work in the same country and pay the same taxes. Let’s put an end to this injustice!

Twitter: @OsmanMOsman_

KASARANI IFTAR.

Terrorism has been a menace all over the globe. The ones doing away with lives are not more human than others. They usually use religious reasons for committing the atrocities. They view this as their as their main drive.


Different countries have reacted to terrorism cases differently. Some choose to unite its citizens and protect its boundaries. It is so sad that my country, Kenya, chose to do away with one community. The Somalis in Kenya have suffered the most out of terrorists attacks.


Two months ago, after the Likoni church attack, the government chose to weed out illegal immigrants. Somalis were mostly affected by the raids. Up to date, the security tools  have not officially reported how many terrorists have been brought to book.


They detained thousands of them saying they are illegal immigrants since they did not know Swahili or didn't have their ID cards.


The irony of a government that has failed to issue its own citizens Identity Cards since ages ago.


A camp was created in the outskirts of the capital Nairobi. Almost a hundred of them were deported back to Somalia. The dancing question remains; where are the rest?


KTN investigative journalist, Mohamed Ali, and other patriotic Kenyans visited the stadium and they were denied access. 
The same day, Deputy President William Ruto on Citizens TV's, the big question show, stated that there are no refugees in the stadium. 

The begging question is, why would the police deny people access to the stadium while there is no 'illegal immigrant' inside?


Kenyans came up with this wonderful project of helping the ones inside the stadium. As you all know, its Ramadhan month and they need Iftar (food for opening Ramadan).

To lend a hand in assisting, send Mpesa to > 0717555990


I hope the pictures below make sense to you. Lets donate and help them. We need them more than they need us.


TWITTER : OSMANMOSMAN_

MVITA MP - ABDULSWAMAD NASSIR

@NAJDA_KHAN WITH MVITA MP @ASNASSIR 

@IDRISMUKTAR

MOHAMED AMIN

@NAJDA_KHAN

@OSMANMOSMAN_

@SAVITA_K_TOOR

A LETTER FROM A SON OF KENYA.

April 6th 20 years ago, two tribes from our neighboring nation, Rwanda, turned against each other. The Hutus and Tutstis shed blood in the name of one being superior. To some, it was heaven on earth and the rest, it was hell.

In a span of a hundred days, close to a million lives were lost. Thousands were left homeless. But one thing is to stand; that the killing of innocent lives did not come out of the blues.

Followed were years of disgrace. The tiny city of Kigali literally went down. Refugees were elevating overnight. 

The act of turning against a neighbor is not something to smile about. In the twenty years I've lived on this Kenyan soil, a neighbor is someone I've treated with highest respect.


A neighbor is someone who will be next to you whether you like it or not. When in trouble, the guy next is the one with highest probability of giving you a hand.

A leader from my tribe can incite me to fight my neighbor because of not voting for him. But, do I have to turn against the person who lives in my near environs?

Do we have to follow the wave of hatred?

Do we have to hate each other to make someone happy?

Do we have to turn against each other to prove our superiority?

Do we?

Our old folks moved out of their comfort zones to fight. To reclaim the land which their fathers were buried. The viral thing is that they never questioned their neighbors about their tribes.

One cold morning, they came up with a resolution. That enough is enough. Let's join our minds and defeat these self proclaimed powerful bodies of the whites.

The ethnic language coming out of their mouths did not separate them. It made them be more united.

They had a dream. A dream of a better eight provinces. A dream that their sons and daughters will one day walk freely to feel the good air.

The worrying thing is that the dreams of the old men and women have not been realized as of yet. Different sets of hooligans have ended up ruling this country with negativity in their minds.

But this should not at any cost divide us. Our ethnic bases has been there, will be there and will remain to make us differentiate from one another.

The language I speak should never be a reason to lose our lives.


In early 2008, Kenya was burning. Someone went to the streets to fight an ethnic group because of a ruler. From towns to villages, we fought each other. We killed. We raped. We also burnt houses to please someone who lives in the comfort of his well secured home.

I was a young teenager in his final moons of primary school. Some of my classmates then, I haven't seen them since. Were their lives done away with? A question that dances in my mind up to date.


What has the mama mboga got to do with your ethnic front runner who does not know the size of room the mama mboga will lay her head tonight.

Our land gradually calmed down after the two people, we were fighting for, shook hands in full glare of both local and international media. The masses who were fighting for the principals were fooled. The people they worked hard for finally agreed on how to share the bigger cake.

A  good student will learn and move on. Months later, we passed a new super document known as the constitution to curb hatred and make us one. We started living together again and promised each other not to fight.

I watched these events with smiles all over my face. That my country Kenya is one again. No tribal alienation. No fighting again. No killing a neighbor in the name of my leader.

Years later, we are here again. Preaching hatred instead of peace and liberty. The events shows that we are in a cycle. We fight, come together, tell each other  lies that we regret the fight again.

Aren't we the most stupid human beings on earth? There is no difference between us and a hyena. Lets grow up and know the difference between fighting for a better Kenya and fighting for the same Kenya.

Lets view each other as siblings. We all have blood after our skin. Many young men and women do not know their ethnic languages fluently, I included. So why fight?

I want my children and my fellow countryman's children to view each other as one people with one goal. The goal of a good land to live in.


TWITTER : @OsmanMOsman_

THE ISOLATED TODDLERS.

"ONE DAY GOD WILL BLESS ME AND MY NAME SHINE"

You always meet them in the streets. If you're lucky enough not to see them, well maybe they'll be waiting for your sympathy in traffic jams. Majority of them will raise up their hands and ask for something mainly some cash to buy tea. For us we never care. You'll give them a weird look and do what we do best; walk away.

Out of a thousand heads, probably three of you will be touched enough to feel the sympathy and throw a coin or two to do away with them.

But, do they deserve this? Were they given a chance to choose? What about their parents, are they alive? If yes, why do they neglect them? These are question that need instant answers since street boys and girls population are elevating overnight!

Some of these young kids had no option but to be on the streets. To raise their tiny hands to get something to consume for the day. Folks, this is not the kind of life one would want to be associated with let alone living. But someone has to do something before it becomes an impending disaster.

Born sixteen years ago, Boniface Andae is a class eight drop out. A young innocent boy never knew that one sunny day, he'll be roaming in the outskirts of Nairobi pleading for sympathy from serious guys chasing their dreams.

However, he had no option but to do it. His father, a man who has the mandate to offer protection to his blood son is a super drunkard. His mother separated with her husband, Boniface's father, and re-married. 

He shows me a small carton which he calls a bed and a home. In school, he tells me, he was the best in drawing. He has won a number of awards after competing with his classmates. Teachers and sponsors gave him pipe promises which was never to be.

"God might have made me be this way but he blessed me with a gift. The gift of drawing. I know one day he'll bless me and make my name shine as a result of art."

Boniface sat for his KCPE exam last year and scored 258 marks out of 500. He was happy to pass his exams and maybe his father would be wise enough to hustle and help a hand in making his dream 

become a reality.

Sadly, he chose the bottle over his on blood. Today, Boniface is one of the toddlers you meet on the streets thanks to his parents.

They said when you go to Rome, do what the Romans do. He found himself walking without shoes. He started emulating his colleagues so as to get something from people he don't know.

To him, anywhere is home so long as darkness finds him there. As long as he gets somewhere to lay his back and close his eyes even if it's for some minutes. Every night as he looks at the stars, since he doesn't sleep under a roof, he wishes. A wish, he tells me, will one day become a reality and he'll be able to conquer the world and be the best of the best.

Caroline Obuya, a Nairobi resident, tells me that she usually dashes out something small when she has something. Sometimes she decides to just pass the ever increasing kids who are supposed to gain knowledge somewhere in a classroom.

What worries many people, I included, is that such young kids engage themselves in drugs. The most used drug in their drugs toolbox is the glue.

According to Dr Hirmoge, such drugs causes disorder to their bodies since they aren't old enough to accommodate them. They reach a point of standard growth where the drugs affects the growth of these toddlers. Their developmental milestone is highly affected.

The glue has gone mainstream among the young street folks. It has a lot of chemical processes. It passes industrial works with toxicant- organic solvents like benzyl.

The normal child growth of these young men and women is no more. Some end up having mental disorders because of drugs.

Boniface is hopeful that one sunny day he will rise and became a house hold name through art of drawing. It's sad that he's going through hardships but he has no otherwise.


Twitter: @OsmanMOsman_

MY LETTER TO MY HEAD OF STATE

It's one year since the wife of the son of Kenya's founding father, lifted a bible for him, in front of thousands. Well in short, tomorrow, the greenhorn jubilee administration is celebrating it's first anniversary since assuming office.

A first time anniversary is one of the best events of all times except for funerals. The question dancing in most of Kenyans' minds is, has Uhuru really walked the talk?

As a Kenyan youth, I came up with a letter which I hope you will give me a hand in reaching to the son of JOMO.

"Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta. My fourth president. I am one of your million youth whom you are working hard to make them smile in moons to come.

I want to admit one thing sir. You inspire me a lot and I can affirm that you are a role model to thousands and millions are looking up to you.

Any action you take in your present life will affect me and my fellow youths of this great nation Kenya.

I believe you have an agenda for us, not only the youth but the entire nation. Your father, the founding father, also had a dream to transform this beautiful land of Kenya.

But one thing is to stand, that the mistakes he made while holding the highest office in Kenyan soil, still haunts our fathers and us. God gave you the power so as to make your ‘daddy’s dream’ become a reality.

So the simplest mistake you make in current time will have a huge impact to me, my fellow young men and women  and our children.

There is the ‘nightmare’ of insecurity in Kenya, ICC cases, elevating poverty and the education menace just to mention a few. These are some of the impending issues affecting your people. I believe you can change it.

Corruption is milking this land dry. All you need is a snap. Crack a whip your excellency. Make the mischief makers face the full consequences of the law as per the great document of the constitution.

Mr. Uhuru, one day you will leave that office and whatever you do now will either make us give you a glowing tribute or lower our eye brows and wish you never rose to become the Chief of General Staff.

It's either you win...or loose badly. Make us hope for the best but not prepare for the worst.

I have a dream that my land Kenya will one day surge and stand out to become the best globalwise.

I hope you have come along such a dream. I am ready to walk that dream with you. From scratches to scores and it’s widely possible.

Twitter: @OsmanMOsman_

PRISONER OF MY IDENTITY.

It is really disturbing to be told by a brother that you are not a brother anymore, to be chased away from a house you have always called home, to be accused of doing injustice to a brother you have always regarded in high esteem.

It is really disturbing, too, to watch as a bunch of lunatics high on some potent pseudo-religious intoxicant hijack a whole doctrine and turn every dogma you have believed in upside down.

It is really disturbing, but, brothers and sisters, it is happening.

I want to write about what is going on in Kenya today, but before we get to that, allow me to digress a bit.

It is important, I think, that I tell you who I am before we get into this story, because only that way can you understand my frame of mind.

My name is Osman. Osman Mohammed Osman. I am a Kenyan — forget all that ‘Kenyan-Somali’ nonsense bandied around of late — and if there is anyone whose heart beats for the good of this nation, that person is me.

Quite distressful

That said, I must say that the past two weeks have been quite distressful for me.

Even as I confess my Kenyanness, which I swore long ago to uphold and respect, I am now torn between confessing my patriotic allegiances and my ethnic affiliations.

When the government announced a crackdown on illegal immigrants in Kenya, who are suspected of being behind the wave of terror activities in the country of late, all eyes turned on Eastleigh, the ‘Little Mogadishu’ located on the outskirts of Nairobi that is believed to be the epicentre of lawlessness and wayward religious indoctrination.

And here, as anyone would expect, they found hundreds of people who either did not have valid identification documents, or were in the country illegally.

Stereotyping

Most of them were Somalis who had somehow sneaked into the capital either from refugee camps in the north, or directly from their war-torn nation. And then the stereotyping and finger-pointing started.

Soon this degenerated into an us-against-them derby, and I, Osman Mohammed Osman, became guilty by birth, blameworthy, censurable and untrustworthy for having the ‘wrong’ ethnic identity.

But why me? Why us? What have I done to be lumped together with the swash-bucklers who shot a bullet into the head of a toddler?

I did not emigrate to this beautiful nation, friends! I was born here 20 years ago in a small maternity hospital in Thika town, now part of Kiambu County, to an army officer who has gallantly fought for this nation for about 30 years now.

Over the years, I have watched my father serve his country with diligence and dedication, and I think that some of the passion I have for this land is borne of the patriotism the good man planted in me early in life.

Back in the 1980s, my father made a decision that affected, for the better, the trajectories of many who looked up to him for guidance and love.

The son of a pastoralist farmer in the harsh Kenyan north, he grew up tending to the camels and goats of his father, my grandfather, and many expected that he would follow in the footsteps of all that had gone before him and acquire a flock of his own.

Travelled to Nairobi

But the man had other ideas, and so one day he climbed into a bus and travelled to Nairobi in search of a better life.

As fate would have it, the military was planning a recruitment at about the same time, and so a few days later he ran and jogged and jumped and did all that they do in army recruitment drives.

He cleared the hurdles and was recruited into the army, and after training they posted him to Thika, where he started a family and watched us grow into what we are today.

As such, I have stronger associations with the Kikuyu and Meru and Embu and Kamba neighbours I grew up with than with my Somali kith and kin. Thika is my home, for here is where they buried my umbilical cord all those moons ago.

I am, therefore, as tethered to this ground as anyone born here would be.

But the last 14 days have planted in me this trepidation, this foreboding that maybe I do not belong here, that maybe my links with Thika are not strong enough.

Yet, deep inside, I know I am right, that I have a right to be called a Kenyan, to be identified with my nation rather than the shape of my nose and the language I speak.

I get a bit uncomfortable when you give me that weird look on the streets, because what you are doing is telling me that I am guilty until proven innocent, that I am a prisoner of your misjudgment in my own home.

Mohamed Khalif, a good friend of mine and also the son of a military officer, walked into a restaurant early this month to watch a football match and probably grab some coffee.

A few seconds after settling in, a waitress approached him and coolly asked for his ID card, which he declined to produce because the good lady was not a security officer.

They had a verbal altercation during which Mohamed tried to convince the woman that there was no requirement for him to prove his nationality before he was served, and in the end, the waitress just got fed up and blurted it out: You are a Somali, she said, and that makes you suspect.

Should he? Must he?

Now, Mohamed could perhaps have avoided all this by either staying away from the restaurant completely, or reaching for his wallet and producing his ID as asked. But should he? Must he?

As his father dodges Al-Shabaab bullets in Somalia, where he has been holed for the past several months, Mohamed is being asked to prove his Kenyanness, his innocence and his allegiance.

And that, folks, is the dilemma we Kenyans of Somali descent now find ourselves in.

I know there are a lot of emotions regarding the ongoing security operation in Eastleigh and other parts of the country, and I want to make it clear here that I, and a number of fellow Somalis that I know, support it through and through.

I find it rather callous and outrightly beastly for anyone to commit the kind of atrocities that we have witnessed in various parts of the country of late, and I think it is only right that we weed out these miscreants.

But, folks, spare us the finger-pointing, because I don’t want to feel like a dreadlocked young man in Murang’a at the height of the operation against Mungiki adherents.

I want to be viewed as a brother, to be able to walk into a restaurant, order some coffee and watch Manchester United lose.

I want to celebrate the wins of this nation with you, and to cry with you when the need arises.

I don’t want to keep looking over my shoulder every time I sense some commotion behind me, or to endure those disapproving stares when I board a matatu. Because that would be just wrong. Too wrong and too hard to bear.

Nothing to do with loonies

My name, the shape of my forehead, or the texture of my hair have nothing to do with the loonies shedding innocent blood in the name of religion.

Every market has its own mad man, but that does not mean all men in those markets are mad.

The Islam I know, the Islam my dad introduced me to, and the Islam I profess does not preach the hate coming from the mouthpieces of al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda and their off-shoots and sympathisers.

I have never, in the 20 years of my life, shed innocent blood for any cause, and I doubt whether there is any indoctrination, whether religious or otherwise, that can cause me to do that now.

As such, I view terrorism as any level-headed man would; with the disdain it deserves.

So, can Osman, a Somali, feel safe in the company of Oluoch, a Luo? Can Kilonzo, a Kamba, embrace Patel, his Indian friend?

I believe in brotherhood, probably because I grew up in a military camp, interacting with men and women from all manner of social and ethnic backgrounds.

Let us, then, not be divided by evil foreign characters who have no idea what brotherhood, in the true sense of the word, means.

Let us not be divided by a people with religious militancy boiling inside their bowels and bullets shooting from their illegal Kalashnikovs.

Our national anthem pleads that we should dwell in unity, peace and liberty, that justice should be our shield and defender.

I hope those words mean something to you, that the dreams and aspirations of our ancestors will pull a chord inside your heart, and that I can lean on your shoulder at the greatest hour of my need.

Twitter: @OsmanMOsman_