When I turned 18 in Nairobi’s Korogocho, holding my new national identity card, nobody came to talk to me about open sewers, youth unemployment or police harassment in our neighbourhood.

I was young, newly documented and suddenly holding a piece of paper that made me valuable to people I had never met. But no one asked what I wanted for our street or how we could improve life in Korogocho. Instead, a community patron I knew came, took my details and had me registered to vote in Eastleigh.

It was seamless, direct and completely normal for everyone around me. My friends went through the same process. For the older generation, their cards were already registered in places such as Mandera, Garissa and Wajir. Everyone knew what was happening. Nobody was being tricked or misled. In places such as Korogocho and Mukuru kwa Njenga, poverty makes people practical.

When a patron comes with promises of bursaries, cash and clan backing, people take it. You don’t vote where you sleep every night; you register where brokers tell you your numbers are needed. It is a calculated decision driven by economic hardship, daily survival and a lack of faith in local government.

Election cycle approaches

Now, as another election cycle approaches, North Eastern politicians are back at it. The recruitment machinery across Korogocho, Mukuru and Eastleigh is active again. Brokers are in the neighbourhood waiting for young people turning 18 to collect their IDs from government offices so they can register them in voter lists for constituencies hundreds of kilometres away.

The moment a young person gets that card, the brokers show up. They track families, know who has reached voting age and which clan lines to tap into. They operate through an organised network of scouts spread across the settlements.

The incentives are familiar: bursary money, cash handouts and appeals to clan loyalty. It is a contest for tribal supremacy fought through numbers. To many, registering in the North is not just about money passed under the table; it is framed as a duty to the clan. You are told your numbers are needed to secure a parliamentary seat, governorship or county assembly position for your people. When that narrative meets immediate financial need, it becomes difficult for an 18-year-old in a slum to say no. Why vote locally for a representative who may disappear anyway when you can get help with your family’s school fees now?

The strange thing is what this does to North Eastern Kenya. In national political discussions, analysts talk about “negotiated democracy” in the North, where clan elders decide who gets elected to maintain balance between sub-clans. But many of these decisions are made right here in Nairobi.

Long-distance buses are chartered from Eastleigh during election week, packed with young people paid to cast votes in towns where they do not live. Queues of buses line the streets, carrying an imported electorate hundreds of dusty kilometres to cast a ballot, eat a meal and return to the capital. At the same time, Nairobi’s settlements suffer. By exporting their votes, residents of Korogocho and Mukuru lose leverage to demand better services from the county.

Political incentive

When local leaders win, they know they do not owe residents much because many did not vote there. There is little political incentive for a local Member of County Assembly or MP to fix drainage, improve street lighting or build clinics when residents cast their ballots in Garissa or Wajir. Politicians know the numbers and focus on the small percentage of local voters left behind, leaving the rest of the community in a civic vacuum.

After elections, politicians who bought those votes pack up and return to Nairobi. They live in Lavington, Runda and Karen, send their children to private schools and enjoy the capital’s amenities. They are removed from both the poor Nairobi neighbourhoods where they bought votes and the rural constituencies in the North they supposedly represent. They do not walk the neglected streets of Mandera after elections, nor step into the mud of Korogocho. They enjoy power, security and large public budgets built on the backs of people living in tin shacks.

Both sides are left worse off. North Eastern gets leaders who do not answer to residents who stay there year-round, facing drought and poor infrastructure. Meanwhile, Nairobi’s informal settlements remain development dead zones because residents trade local voting power for a quick handout and a bus ticket.

Until young people in Korogocho and Mukuru realise that their local vote is a tool for demanding clean water, safety and decent roads where they live, this cycle will continue, leaving our neighbourhoods abandoned while others profit from our numbers.

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The writer is a journalist and human rights defender. hanifa@odipodev.com