Group faults picking of 2017 candidates by Mandera elders, wants council disbanded
Abdullahi Abdi (left), chairman of a caretaker committee formed and Ali Abdi Garicha, a member of the committee, after a meeting of a group of Garre elders in El Wak, Mandera County on October 19, 2016. The group said last Sunday’s Takaba Declaration that backed various candidates for seats in the 2017 elections contradicts the Garre Charter signed before the 2013 general election. PHOTO | KENNEDY KIMANTHI | NATION MEDIA GROUP
The group has appointed a nine-member interim committee that will now over-see the clan’s affairs.
The nine were picked from the Ali, Adola, Asare and Alfukesha sub-clans.
The chairman of the new committee dismissed the Takaba Declaration as non-inclusive.
Mr Abdi said he does not understand why the elders are insisting that leaders should only serve for one term.
Some elders in Mandera now want the Garre Council of Elders dissolved and new members appointed in December ahead of the 2017 elections.
The leaders say the Takaba Declaration made last Sunday by the elders, in which preferred candidates for various positions in the 2017 elections were picked, lacks the backing of any Kenyan law and that it goes against the Garre Charter signed before the 2013 general election.
