In what is manifestly a violation of Kenya's sovereignty, 50 heavily armed Ethiopian soldiers and policemen are reported to have crossed into Kenya in a convoy of vehicles and occupied a police station in North Horr. The reason for this aggression remains unclear.
It is instructive that a foreign army can drive unchallenged 16km inside Kenya, occupy a police station, accomplish their mission and leave unmolested. This is said to be the third time Ethiopian troops have crossed into Kenya this year alone, yet there is very little the Government has done, either by way of a diplomatic "protest" or securing the area against such raids by a foreign army.
The border row with Ethiopia is not new.
In 2004, the two countries came close to an armed conflict after Ethiopia deployed 40,000 of its troops along the common border in Moyale. At some point, it was even claimed Ethiopians had illegally settled and embarked on farming in Kenya, heightening tensions with the locals.
The Ethiopian case is just one of many such cases that appear to leave Kenya at the mercy of her neighbours, all of who have at one point claimed a part of Kenya. There was a border dispute with Tanzania around the Kilimanjaro area.
In 2014, Somalia kicked up a border row with Kenya over their maritime borders in the Indian Ocean at a time when several multinational oil companies had expressed interest in carrying out oil exploration.
In 2009, Uganda laid claim to Migingo and Ugingo Islands, with its soldiers hoisting the Ugandan flag. They even harassed and taxed Kenyan fishermen on the two islands.
Following these persistent rows, President Uhuru Kenyatta tabled in Parliament a report titled 'Progress Made in Fulfilling the International Obligations of the Republic' in which he stressed the need for the country to agree on its common borders with its neighbours, namely Tanzania, South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia.
The report indicated the country would spend Sh5.6 billion on surveys and the mapping of its borders within a period of five years.
At the conclusion of the exercise, Kenya is expected to hand over the international boundary surveys to the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) by 2017. In the meantime, because this exercise is underway, common courtesy dictates that the countries with border issues stop antagonising each other until the conclusion of the exercise to the satisfaction of all parties.
But then, Kenya cannot just sit back and watch its borders violated with impunity, especially now that the country faces serious security challenges from terrorists and other criminal elements. Kenya's Ministry of Foreign Affairs ought to promptly protest this act of intimidation and violation of our sovereignty to the Ethiopian government.
Yet despite that, the incident also helps highlight laxity at our border posts. Not only do Ethiopians also transit through Kenya to South Africa, poachers find it easy to transport their haul through our unguarded borders.
The Al-Shabaab walk in and out of Kenya because there is no one to stop them or because those tasked with the job are on the take and hence look the other way or plainly incompetent to man our borders, in which case they should be removed.
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