What Price are You Willing to Pay to End the Al Shabaab Menace?

Its only two weeks since the Garissa terrorist attack. The stories recounted by the survivors are chilling. Even more chilling are the stories narrated by the loved ones left behind by the fallen souls. The stories of commitment to education and integration. Some students were afraid to go to Garissa university college. But the promise of peaceful coexistence and integration lured them. Some even declared that if their fate is to die in Garissa then they will die in Garissa. Such was the commitment of those kids to their success. Success in education and life.

They paid the ultimate price for their commitment. So my question is, what price are we willing to pay to end the Al Shabaab menace? Is being stopped for several hours at check point the price you are willing pay? Is being rounded up in Eastleigh and having our houses checked the price we are willing to pay? Is closing the Dadaab camp and probably risking good international relations the price we are willing to pay? Is standing up against the popular views a price we are willing to pay? Is losing several millions in lost business due to closed institution a price we are willing to pay?

What price is greater than losing 147 lives? Are we waiting for the next attack where the leader of the attackers will be a refugee from Dadaab for us to accept its closure? Are we waiting for hard evidence that an attack in Nairobi Chapel or Citam on December 2015 was paid through a certain hawala in September of the same year, for us to believe in 2016 that hawalas are being used by our enemies?

It has taken 147 lives in a university college for leaders in NER to admit that the enemy is within the community. The government has been claiming that the enemy is within, that security starts with you, but we all thought it goes to show inefficiency in government. But I am convinced that all these measures are aimed at securing us from the enemy within. Could it be that its true mpeketoni was internally planned and executed?

Before you open your mouth or may be start tweeting and facebooking, just ask yourself, what price are you willing to pay to secure the nation. Security is our responsibility. I am willing to pay any price but lose another life. So if the government wants to close the border let it close, if it wants to close dadaab let it close, if it wants to close hawalas let it close; if it wants to come to my community and conduct a thorough search like the one in Eastleigh, let it come and do it; if they want me to stop for hours to be searched let it do it!!! All these are cheap prices to pay to secure our nation!!! There are those who have paid the ultimate price for it and if I do not pay my price another life might just be lost.

Securing this nation will come at a price. Every one of us will have to pay that price. Those who refuse to pay the price now will only cost us lives later. So the questions stands, what price are you willing to pay?