By Rashid H. Adankhalif
Disaster and risk management consultant
On June 1, 2026, Wajir County hosted Madaraka Day. That would have sounded like fiction to any “Northerner”. In 63 years of independence, no government had taken any national celebrations to the North.
The historic event at Wajir Stadium says plenty about where the North has stood in Kenya’s national story, and what has begun to change under President William Ruto.
As the President said in his Madaraka Day speech, “it is a momentous affirmation that Madaraka–our freedom, our dignity, our self-determination–was meant for some Kenyans and not for others”.
