How anxiety over a growing Somali community collides with a long, largely erased history
Public unease over the growth of the Somali community in Kenya has resurfaced in recent days, framed in some quarters as a demographic and political threat. The question has been raised bluntly: Is the expanding Somali presence in Kenya – and globally – something other communities should fear?
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The latest round of controversy was sparked when a cleric warned Kenyans to be wary of the “implosion” in the size and influence of Somali communities. In response, prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Ibrahim Lethome sharply rebuked the remarks, accusing the cleric of stoking suspicion and unfairly singling out Somalis. The exchange captured a wider anxiety that has simmered beneath Kenya’s politics for decades: a recurring fear that Somali identity is inherently tied to insecurity, separatism or extremism.
That framing, however, collapses under even modest scrutiny of history. Long before today’s security narratives, Somalis were among the foundational communities in the making of modern Kenya – economically, politically and geographically. To treat them as outsiders or newcomers is to ignore both archival evidence and the lived experience of generations of Kenyans of Somali descent.
Consider the story of the Kenya–Uganda railway, often taught as a tale of British planners and Indian laborers. Less remembered is the role of British Somalilanders who worked on and alongside the railway, then settled in emerging urban centers. These early Somali workers and traders helped shape neighborhoods such as Parklands and parts of Thika, with figures like the long-serving councillor Alikabati associated with large tracts of land stretching toward what is now Nairobi’s Safari Park area.
This pattern repeats across central and northern Kenya. Somali communities in Nyeri, Nanyuki, Nakuru, Eldoret and Bungoma are not recent implants but the result of migration and settlement that dates back over a century. Their presence is intertwined with colonial military service, trade routes, livestock economies and the broader restructuring of territory during the scramble for Africa. Any serious conversation about the “growth” of Somali communities must begin from this starting point: they did not suddenly appear.
The erasure of this history is not accidental. After independence, the Shifta conflict in northern Kenya – driven by calls for self-determination among ethnic Somalis – triggered a harsh state response. The region was militarized, and Somalis were subjected to exceptional laws such as the District Containment Act and the Indemnity Act, effectively marking them as a security problem rather than citizens. These policies reduced many to second-class status and left a legacy of collective suspicion that lingers in contemporary rhetoric.
When politicians or religious figures now warn against a “growing Somali community,” they echo that older logic of containment and mistrust. The assumption is that numbers equal risk. Yet this argument breaks down when placed in a wider global context. Somalis today are one of the most dispersed communities in the world, visible from Tel Aviv to Moscow, Vienna to Brussels, and Dubai to North America. In many of these places, they have moved from refugee camps and low-wage work into public office, entrepreneurship and professional leadership.
The United Kingdom has had Somalis for more than a century, with citizens of Somali descent elected at both municipal and national levels. Canada counts a Somali-descended minister among its cabinet members. Across European parliaments, representatives of Somali origin now sit in chambers once dominated by homogenous elites. None of these political gains have led to the collapse of their host societies. Instead, they demonstrate that Somali identity, like any other, can be fully compatible with democratic participation and national loyalty.
At the heart of the current Kenyan debate is a category error: conflating individual criminal behavior with collective identity. Any large community will contain criminal elements; that is a human constant, not an ethnic trait. To label an entire group as suspect because some of its members are involved in crime or extremism is not security analysis – it is profiling. It also obscures the reality that Somali communities themselves have often been among the first victims of violence, discrimination and economic exclusion.
A more constructive approach would start from two principles. First, acknowledge Somali communities in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Tanzania and the wider diaspora as a product of history – including colonial partition and labor migration – rather than as a recent, invasive force. Second, insist that the law deals with individuals, not identities: criminal responsibility is personal, while rights and protections are universal. Within that framework, calls for integration, civic participation and respect for host-country norms make sense; collective suspicion does not.
For Somalis themselves, the message emerging from community leaders is one of persistence and composure: remain resilient, stay hardworking, honor both your traditions and the legal frameworks of the countries where you live, and refuse to be defined by the worst narratives about your people. For the broader Kenyan public, the challenge is different but equally urgent – to step back from recycled fears, revisit the archives, and recognize how deeply Somali history is woven into the fabric of the nation.
Kenya’s future stability will not be secured by amplifying demographic panic, but by confronting historical distortion, rejecting ethnic profiling and building a civic compact that treats Somalis not as a question mark at the margins, but as an integral part of the story.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
