Kenyan President signs Proclamation to facilitate national ID issuance in border communities

President William Ruto of Kenya has signed a Presidential Proclamation on Registration and Issuance of IDs to border counties in the North of the country.

The executive action taken by the Kenyan leader on February 5 removes a vetting requirement that citizens in the Northern part of Kenya had to undergo before being issued Kenyan national ID cards.

The vetting requirement, which had been in place for 60 years, was imposed as an extra security procedure for issuing identity documents after a secessionist rebellion in which some communities in that part of the country tried to switch allegiance to Somalia.

Essentially, the vetting process entailed committees composed of ID registration and security individuals using discretionary powers to determine who was eligible for a national ID card based on documentation submitted.

Generally, some border communities in Kenya have suffered historical injustices such as discrimination and ethnic profiling in relation to citizenship and legal identity.

The direct outcome of the Proclamation, according to reporting by local portal Citizen Digital, is that thousands of citizens who were hitherto deprived from a enjoying legal identity under Kenyan laws, will now be able to do so.

Ruto signed the Proclamation during a tour of some Northern border communities, and it is seen by some observers as a move by the president to secure Northern votes ahead of his possible re-election bid in 2027.

Ruto’s Proclamation comes about a week after a high court ordered the government to take measures aimed at deregistering over 40,000 persons in some Northern communities of Kenya who had “double nationality” problems, and thus unable to be issued national ID cards.

The court judgement was the denouement of a legal battle wedged against the government by an NGO, Haki Na Sheria, which argued that the denial of national ID cards to these people with double registration issues was unconstitutional and an infringement on their fundamental right to legal identity.

While people in the Northern communities of Kenya now preparing to receive ID cards, there have been concerns that hundreds of thousands of people who applied for the cards in all other parts of the country have abandoned them.

The Principal Secretary for Immigration and Citizen Services, Prof Julius Bitok, said this mid-week that around 400,000 national ID cards remain uncollected at different registration stations.

Bitok said while the number of new generation national ID cards (Maisha cards) distributed has gone beyond three million, “there are many Kenyans who have applied for the IDs but are yet to be collected.”

The government official, while urging citizens to pick up their cards, noted however that digital IDs which have been issued can be used in a convenient manner to access a wide range of services without the need to carry along the physical card.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  identity document  |  identity management  |  Kenya  |  Maisha Namba  |  national ID