Every Kenyan regardless of ethnic, social political and economic status must be treated equally and enjoy all government services without discrimination. This was the Presidents affirmation when he toured the North Eastern region recently.
According the citizens of that region the comfort of evading the tedious hustle and humiliation of the vetting process to acquire ID cards and the close proximity to the services for acquisition of passports is not only due but a human rights standard that should have been actualized since independence.
It’s not a secret that Kenyans residing in that region have waited for far too long and at times I felt like they were being treated like second class citizens in their homeland. You can imagine the pain of getting these essential documents not for aesthetic purposes but as a key to unlock access to crucial government services like financial services, academic institutions registration, land and other important transactions. Moreover, one reason beat all; the concept of identity as a Kenyan.
It is however important to note that those restrictions were put in place because of certain reasons and happenstances. These reasons must have had a backing and therefore the guard could not be dropped without a clear analysis and review.
It is very clear that the region covers an expansive area bordering unstable states namely Somalia and Ethiopia. Having had visited the region severally, the deliberate neglect by the previous regions development wise has created an illusion of ‘another Kenya’ and therefore things are never clear especially if you review the infrastructure. This has in turn resulted into a porous border situation whereby people are free to move in out of Kenya from the other territories.
The situation by the fact that the residents of that region share a common ancestry, values and cultures and therefore defeated by a weak government structure to vet the applicants. This might give the ineligible applicants an undue advantage to acquire the important documents.
It would have been therefore a wise move for the President and the concerned government departments to inform Kenyans if the reasons that were in the first place introduced to slam brakes on the obvious registration process were reviewed and analyzed. If not, then the country will be courting the same disaster it was trying to evade when those policies came into place.
Let all Kenyans get Identification documents but let’s not compromise our sovereignty and security through populist roadside declarations.
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