Marsabit residents have been urged to love one another and guard the prevailing peace by co-existing harmoniously.
Marsabit county commissioner James Kamau also told chiefs to ensure that the Nyumba Kumi community policing initiative was working in their areas of work as the best way of maintaining order.
Kamau said that peace, which had eluded the county for some time had been restored, thus giving room for investment and development and should be protected at all cost.
Assistant County Commissioner for Gadamoji division Thomas Ngangi spoke on behalf of Kamau in a meeting to end a 12-month Accelerated Response Initiative against Violent Extremism in the area.
The county commissioner reminded Marsabit residents that patriotism from every citizen was key in ensuring that there was sustained security and peace.
The County Engagement Forum which spearheaded the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund observed that the ACT program which is coordinated by the National Counter-Terrorism Centre has made a significant step towards fostering peace and countering extremism in the county.
Kamau was satisfied that the counter-extremism program had managed to capture the rich matrix of the participants with the youth being involved as active participants.
Kamau told chiefs and their assistants to ensure that community policing was not only active but effective in their areas of work saying that was the only way that acts of crime could be detected and stemmed as they emerged.
The county commissioner also told the administrators to account for the number of school-aged students by ensuring that they attend school lest they be lured into criminal activities.
“I call upon you to bring around Nyumba Kumi so that you can manage to be on the lookout for timely action on bad elements and strangers within your areas of work,” he said.
The county commissioner told the residents to continue cooperating with law enforcement agencies to enable them to deal more effectively with emerging cases of motorcycle thefts and other crimes.
“I urge Marsabit residents to uphold the prevailing peace and to continue coexisting harmoniously with our neighbouring Ethiopians,” Kamau said.
ARIVE through CEF has been striving to explore factors that make youth vulnerable to radicalisation and recruitment to extremism organisations.
It tasked the government and other agencies to offer alternatives to their economic, religious, social and even leadership challenges.
The CEF members had expressed concern that there could be proliferation of illegal firearms and drugs due to the porous Kenya-Ethiopia border, which could easily affect the steps made against violence and crime.