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Rogue officials within the Immigration Department and the National Registration Bureau facilitate the issuance of IDs and passports. [File, Standard]
Kenya's immigration scandal is back in the headlines, and for a good reason. Yet again, The Standard newspaper’s investigative unit has exposed a rot so entrenched within the Immigration Department and the National Registration Bureau that one is left wondering whether those in authority actually want it stopped.
Foreign nationals, especially from Somalia, Ethiopia, Burundiand Uganda, are acquiring Kenyan identity cards and passports through a well-organised syndicate of corrupt officials, paid brokers and hired 'parents'. One man in the NRB database reportedly appears as the father of over 100 people. An Ethiopian labourer at Kiamaiko goat market admits, on camera, that he bought his Kenyan ID in Marsabit for Sh15,000. This is a dangerous business that must be nipped in the bud.
The dangers this practice exposes Kenya to are real and dire. From the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Nairobi to the Dusit attack, investigators have time and again traced how fraudulent identity documents enabled criminals to move, hide and kill. A Kenyan passport, once compromised, becomes a master key to territories closed to the holder's actual nationality. The Algoney Hamdan Dagalo case, the senior Sudan RSF commander who obtained Kenyan passport is a case in point. A Kenyan travel document ended up in the hands of a man linked to the Sudan war. Months later, not a single official has been held to account. Above all, no one should gain the priviledge of being Kenyan through the backdoor.
