Expel foreigners and terrorism will end overnight

Foreigners are very bad people. They come to Kenya begging for citizenship, pretend to like the country’s freedom, blend in, marry and integrate into local communities, then pouf!

It’s a bomb; or a burst of gunfire in a crowded place: All the terrorist attacks that have bled the country and spouted an endless stream of tears — from the Westgate Shopping Mall, to the Likoni killings, the Mpeketoni attacks, the Mandera bus and quarry slaughters and the Garissa University College massacre — the suspects have all been foreign. Some may have started off claiming to be Kenyan, bearing names from local ethnic groups, but that has not fooled the security intelligence people.

Their feints do not fool the security machinery one bit. Last year, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Likoni, in which six people were killed, the launch of Usalama Watch saw thousands of suspected foreigners arrested from Eastleigh, detained in police stations and football stadiums until they cracked.

After sending 358 Somalis and other foreigners to Mogadishu, and putting the rest in refugee camps, the nonsense about attacks on buses and churches was permanently ended.

Every time there has been a terrorist attack on Kenyan soil, non-nationals have been in the thick of it. Their lack of Kenyan blood ties, identification documents, property and other markers of citizenship has bred in them jealousy and hatred.

Were it not for the politicking of closet terrorist sympathisers, every citizen would have been required to provide a blood sample and hair to build a biometric database of real and genuine Kenyans.

STEALING IDENTITIES

True, patriotic citizens would have been issued with new identity cards — as suggested by the Deputy President a year ago — that would prevent them from being contaminated with messages of fundamentalist radicalisation.

People harbouring evil intentions have been stealing Kenyan identities, infiltrating government machinery and spreading foreign beliefs. They need to go back where they came from.

It obvious that the remnants of terrorism who fell through the Usalama Watch sweep and have been holed up in the comfort of refugee camps are the ones who sneaked out to perpetrate the attacks on a public service bus and a quarry last year.

Although it is claimed that the mastermind of the Garissa attack is a Kenyan neighbour of the college, the truth will emerge once the Sh20 million prize on the head of Mohamed Mohamud, alias Gamadhere, is claimed.

A deep investigation will also reveal that Mohammed Abdirahim Abdullahi, the young man who allegedly led other terrorists in the Garissa siege, might have been physically Kenyan but spiritually Syrian.

Others who had falsely embedded themselves in communities now claim to be native sons of Mombasa and Bungoma. These were not Kenyans by any stretch of the imagination. They were all foreigners.

Time has come to separate foreigners from Kenyans. The 350,000 refugees in Daadab, next to the Somalia border, should all be repatriated to their country, where they can continue to live in a camp for exiles under the protection of the United Nations. People pretending to be refugees and mouthing international law should not be allowed to threaten the safety of citizens.

Kenya should build the Sh26 billion wall along the border with Somalia, complete with border guards, patrol dogs and electric fencing. Keeping the foreigners at bay will also ensure that the messages of radicalisation do not seep in to contaminate the minds of young Kenyans.

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