[5] During negotiations for Kenya's independence, Britain granted administration of the whole of the Northern Province to Kenyan nationalists despite an informal plebiscite showing the overwhelming desire of part of the region's population to join the newly formed Somali Republic.
[6][7] In present-day usage, the NFD refers to the six counties of Kenya that were established out of the six districts created by the colonial government prior to independence.
[8] At the time under British colonial administration, the northern half of Jubaland Province was ceded to Italy as a reward for the Italians' support of the Allies during World War I.
[9] Britain retained control of the southern half of the territory, which was later merged with the Northern Frontier Province[2] In 1925, the military's role began to diminish, with a partial transition to civil administration, with the exception of Wajir and Mandera, which were civilly administered the following year.
The districts of the reorganised Northern Frontier Province included Moyale, Gurreh, Wajir, Telemugger, Garba Tula, Marsabit, and Samburu.
[11] In December 1962, at the urging of the Somalia government, the British appointed a commission to ascertain the desires of the inhabitants of the Northern Frontier District regarding its future.
[14] On the eve of Kenya's independence in August 1963, British officials belatedly realized that the new Kenyan regime was not willing to give up the Somali-inhabited areas it had just been granted administration of.
[15] In response, the Kenyan government enacted a number of repressive measures designed to frustrate their efforts in what came to be known as the shifta period:[6] Somali leaders were routinely placed in preventive detention, where they remained well into the late 1970s.
The government refused to acknowledge the ethnically based irredentist motives of the Somalis, making constant reference in official statements to the shifta (bandit) problem in the area.