A fresh wave of insecurity cases has hit Marsabit County with three people killed in separate attacks this week.
Mr Mata Waqo, the Borana Peace Committee chairperson, was killed at the Kituruni area in Saku Constituency by unknown people on Monday afternoon.
On the same day, a boda boda rider, Halkano Wako, was also shot dead by unknown people in Gabra scheme on his way back home, sparking a retaliatory attack in which Mzee Issack Gollo was murdered in his shop in Marsabit town.
"We were on the right track of realising a longstanding peace for the last two months until when all our efforts were again watered down. I don't really understand what is happening," lamented Marsabit Governor Mohamud Ali.
In connection with the latest killings, Governor Ali expressed dissatisfaction with what he termed as “insensitivity of the State” to the plights of Marsabit people.
He pointed accusing fingers to investigative agencies that have failed to successfully prosecute killers and cattle rustlers behind the wave of insecurity.
“I blame Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiang’i and DPP Noordin Haji for applying the law selectively by acting expeditiously to quell storm in other regions of Kenya while failing to set foot in Marsabit where ethnic clashes have left people dead, thousands displaced and others completely deprived of their livelihoods in two years,” the governor charged.
Mr Ali said the disarmament of the national police reservists in 2019 had subsequently left locals exposed and vulnerable to banditry attacks.
For his part Saku MP Rasso Dido linked the new spate of killings to the unwillingness of unnamed individuals to implement peace agreements.
He asked Dr Matiang’i to come to the aid of Marsabit residents who he said had grown weary of endemic ethnic killings.
“There is a need for the government to rise to the occasion and find a lasting solution to the plights of the residents. Marsabit residents equally deserved peace and good lives as other Kenyans,” the MP said.
Marsabit police boss Robinson Mboloi explained Mr Waqo was waylaid by unknown assailants while he was driving to his home in Dub Goba on Monday evening.
He was shot in the neck just a few minutes after delivering construction materials at a health centre project he was undertaking at the Kituruni area.
The recent incidents come barely a month after the National Cohesion and Integration Commission Commissioner Abdulaziz Maalim led the warring communities into signing a peace accord.
Among those who agreed to spearhead the implementation of a longstanding peace process was the slain Borana Peace Committee chairperson.
