“Our homes, our markets, our mosques were destroyed, yet we gave sacrifices for Pakistan,” declared Chief Minister Sohail Afridi in Khyber district as he demanded that the federal government settle the Rs 550 billion owed to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and warned that no new operation would proceed without provincial consultation.
The people of KP have heard promises before, but Afridi’s words struck a chord with a population that has waited too long for peace to turn into progress. From the merged tribal districts to the settled plains, the costs of conflict have been borne by ordinary citizens rather than institutions.
In the third quarter of 2025, Pakistan recorded 901 fatalities from militant violence (an increase of 46 per cent from the previous quarter), with KP and Balochistan together absorbing more than 96 per cent of that burden. One independent report estimates that KP alone accounted for about 71 per cent of the deaths.
This province has carried the country’s security weight for two decades, yet still struggles to provide the most basic services. Despite large allocations to education and health, more than 4.7 million children remain out of school, and many rural clinics have no doctors or medicine. When political slogans keep invoking “tabdeeli” while daily life delivers little beyond frustration, hope quietly hardens into resentment.
Afridi’s call for a Grand Peace Jirga in Bara on October 25 offers an opening if it becomes more than a ceremony. The jirga could give communities a real voice in shaping peace and governance.
But if it ends with speeches and photographs while roads stay broken and hospitals unfunded, it will be remembered as another act of political theatre.
The frontier cannot remain a battlefield or a black hole for promises. Those steering the province must recognise that fiscal obligation can be turned into inclusion only through practical delivery. Equally vital is ensuring that future decisions on security and development are made with, not on behalf of, the people of KP.
The test before KP’s leadership is simple. Governance cannot survive on rhetoric. The people do not seek privilege, for they only seek proof that their lives matter, that their children can study, that their province is valued rather than treated as the cost centre of someone else’s political whims. *