NAKURU, Kenya, Sept 22 – The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) is counting on youth in some of the country’s volatile areas to be advocates of peace as the country gears towards the elections.
NCIC Commissioner Sam Kona says the deliberate partnership between the integration commission and youth aims at sensitizing them from being used by politicians in sowing seeds of chaos.
“The arrangement mooted with NACADA and other partners seeks to use sports, theatre and other genres of art to empower youth with information about peacebuilding, civil rights and community engagement ahead of the general elections that are less than a year away,” says Commissioner Kona.
Speaking at Njoro stadium while commissioning football matches for youth from the volatile Naissuit, Mauche and Oluposimoru triangle along the Nakuru-Narok common border, Kona said that the year long program comes to complement the commission`s quest to diffuse simmering tension in troubled areas of the Rift Valley as the political class forge pre-election alliances ahead of the general polls.
“As politicians create political coalitions in the cosmopolitan region, they are likely to misuse jobless and misinformed youths as agents of coercion against their opponents, a move the commission fears may stir discord in the region,” he says.
In cases where politicians have been attacked allegedly by youth sponsored by their opponents, NCIC says that such incidents of intolerance point to an increasingly toxic political discourse.
The youth are now being challenged to interrogate their political idols on their track records and vision for the country instead of acting as handy tools for the politician`s egocentric interests.
“NCIC is monitoring and documenting political engagements in the region with a view of identifying hate mongers and their collaborators for subsequent prosecution,” he says.
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