The government together with area leaders from Mandera County have vowed to enhance relationships with Mandera residents with the aim to improve security and curb terrorist attacks in the region.
North Eastern Regional Commissioner Nicodemus Ndalana has promised the residents that government will work with locals to ensure terror groups are flushed out of Mandera.
Ndalana added that the solution to this menace is to come up with a homegrown solution to enable the timely sharing of intelligence.
He also acknowledged the good work done by special forces whom he says are working tirelessly to ensure Mandera is secure.
Ndalama also urged politicians to work together with the government to end the perennial attacks in the region.
He at the same time vowed that both levels of government will work together to train Kenya Police reservist(KPR) as well as deploy them to Takaba and Banisa which were recently affected.
An area resident however said they blame the police for ignoring intelligence from locals.
Bashir Abdullahi Member of Parliament Mandera North in response to the resident said, “we don’t need guns to win in the war against Al-Shabaab, just be patriotic and give police necessary information.”
He promised to take an amendment bill to parliament on the NPS act that should allow Kenya Police Reservist to be under the county government.
Mandera County Governor Ali Roba on his part asked the government to strengthen KPR and requested the government to build trust with citizens as a way of strengthening information sharing avenues.
He added that for the last eleven years, Al-Shabaab has been recruiting youths in the county.
He also warned locals against associating the current attacks with tribes as it would fuel interclan clashes which according to him are far worse than the Al-Shabaab issue.
