ROBERT WAWERU: ID vetting still in place

On February 5, 2025, William Ruto signed a decree “eliminating” vetting requirements for residents of Northeastern Kenya applying for national identification documents.

This move followed his April 8, 2024, announcement that his regime would “abolish” vetting starting May 1, 2024.

As a result, on April 29, 2024, the Department of Immigration and Citizen Services issued new guidelines for citizen registration.

Under the new rules, Kenyans from border and cosmopolitan areas applying for ID cards must, like all other Kenyans, provide proof of their name, age and citizenship through birth certificates, birth notification, academic certificates, religious card, clinic card or age assessment report and their parents’ ID cards.

However, additional requirements apply to them, including obtaining an introductory letter from the local chief, having their parent or guardian physically present to provide a thumbprint, and securing the chief’s or assistant chief’s certification, complete with their thumbprint on the application form.

Furthermore, lists of applicants must be submitted for vetting by the National Intelligence Service and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

Moreover, applicants must also apply for IDs in their home counties, forcing them to undergo extra verification steps even after providing valid government-issued documents. These were the same requirements that the now-abolished vetting process demanded.

Additionally, the guidelines hold parents, guardians and local administrators personally liable for identifying and registering applicants as Kenyan citizens.

This added responsibility places undue pressure on chiefs and assistant chiefs, potentially leading to arbitrary rejections, particularly since applicants—including those born and raised in urban centres—must travel back to their rural counties for identification.

Before Ruto’s decree, vetting subjected certain Kenyans—primarily from specific regions, ethnic groups or religious backgrounds (mainly Muslim-Somalis, Nubians and Arabs) to additional scrutiny when applying for identification documents.

Unlike other citizens, they had to appear before a vetting committee, provide extra documentation and meet additional conditions.

The vetting committee, which included government officials such as a deputy or assistant county commissioner, a registrar of persons, a local chief, NIS and immigration officers, a civil registration services offi cer, a DCI officer and local elders, had unfettered discretion to determine who qualified for national identification.

Vetting is clearly unconstitutional. Article 27(4) of Constitution provides that the state shall not discriminate directly or indirectly against any person on any ground, including race, sex, ethnic or social origin, religion or culture.

Article 12 (1) (b) provides that every citizen is entitled to a Kenyan passport and any document of registration or identification issued by the state. The government’s justification for vetting has been to ensure that only genuine Kenyan nationals receive identity documents, citing ‘national security’ concerns.

However, applicants are frequently subjected to arbitrary questioning and required to present documents unrelated to citizenship, such as title deeds or great-grandparents’ birth certificates. These sittings are irregular, leading to prolonged delays and frequent denials, even for those who met all requirements.

In many cases, individuals are forced to undergo multiple rounds of vetting, including when renewing documents they had already been scrutinised for in prior applications.

In some instances, applicants are not issued with the waiting cards as is the norm so that they have no evidence to follow up in case of lengthy delays – sometimes years. While the government claims the new guidelines replace the old vetting system, they largely replicate it.

By shifting identification powers to chiefs and security agencies, the process remains vulnerable to arbitrary questioning, excessive documentation requests and unjust denials—as with vetting committees.

In a country like Kenya, these vetting measures are counterproductive and achieve nothing. Instead of safeguarding national security, vetting only serves to disproportionately discriminate, extort and marginalise poor Kenyan citizens while failing to prevent non-Kenyans from acquiring identity documents fraudulently.

Through vetting, communities such as the Somalis and Nubians continue to be treated as second-class citizens and remain at risk of statelessness in Kenya.

Without significant progressive revisions, the new guidelines will not bring about any meaningful change.

Robert Waweru is a Citizenship rights expert