Locals are used to rioting, blocking roads, going on strikes whenever they want to communicate with their political leaders on neglected critical issues.
For Marsabit residents’ things were different as the peaceful citizens skillfully shamed their leaders by serving them with a bottle of dirty muddy water each.
In a meeting that was happening in Karare area, Marsabit County on Monday, the visiting county officials were left in a state of bewilderment as locals placed muddy bottles of drinking water on the ‘high table’.The visiting dignitaries had gathered the locals for an informal meeting in a bid to drum up support for the establishment of a municipality in the county.
However, the locals who have been experiencing one of the worst water shortages in recent history were at their tipping point and fed up with their leaders. They decided to address the water issue
They felt that the agenda of the meeting was a little bit off the mark as the issue that had their backs against the wall for the past months was access to clean water.
It is at this point that the residents set up bottled muddy water adjacent to each visiting dignitary as a symbol of defiance as well as a tool to drive their point home.
“Our problem is water, not a municipality,” one resident defiantly stated, while addressing the bamboozled delegation.
The residents made it clear what they felt deserved to be given first priority and expressed their disappointment in the county officials’ focus on politics while people were going hungry and walking for many kilometers in search of clean water.
The pain in the hearts of Marsabit locals is justifiable since they had lost hundreds of camels in under 2 months
On January 8, 2019 residents of Maikona in Marsabit county were left counting losses after 37 camels died after drinking contaminated water.
Two days later about 110 camels died in Elehadi village in Marsabit’s North Horr sub-county, after similarly consuming tainted water.
Tainted water has been a spiky issue in the county and is accountable for the loss of both animal and human lives.