Senator Ledama Ole Kina has accused national policies, not regional leaders, of deliberately keeping Northern Kenya underdeveloped, challenging long-held narratives blaming local officials for the region’s slow progress.
Speaking amid growing criticism of Northern leaders over alleged corruption and poor governance, Ledama called the widespread view “dishonest ethnic populism.”
He said historical and structural policies systematically sidelined the North.
“The North didn’t fail to develop while Mt Kenya heroically built itself. It was underdeveloped by policy design – from Sessional Paper No. 10 to skewed budgets that favoured ‘high potential’ regions and starved arid counties of roads, schools and hospitals,” the senator said.
Ledama argued that pointing fingers at Northern leaders alone ignores decades of marginalization. He highlighted how children from arid counties have been blocked from accessing national schools due to entrenched stereotypes.
“Using lazy stereotypes to lock poor kids out of national schools is not protection, it’s greed in a suit,” he said.
The senator warned that blaming local leaders while continuing to allocate more resources to already developed regions only deepens inequality.
He called for reforms that prioritize infrastructure, health, and education in marginalized counties, ensuring all Kenyans have an equal chance to prosper.
Ledama’s statements come at a time when the debate over Northern Kenya’s development and accountability of its leaders is intensifying, shedding light on the systemic barriers that have shaped the region’s slow growth for decades.