Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i on Sunday accused exiled lawyer Miguna Miguna of standing in the way of his return to Kenya by refusing to fill out what he said was a one-page document.
Dr Matiang’i rejected claims that he had disobeyed court orders that directed him to facilitate Dr Miguna’s return from Canada, where he lives.
In his defence, Dr Matiang’i implied that Dr Miguna had been reluctant to fill the one-page form that is required of Kenyans who want to regain the citizenship they lost under the old Constitution after adopting other nationalities.
“We have obeyed even the recent order when we were ordered to facilitate him to come. Our minister for Foreign Affairs organised with the mission in Germany. We have opened immigration offices even in Canada. What is so difficult about filling that one-page letter? Over 300,000 Kenyans filled out that paper,” said Dr Matiang’i in an interview with the NTV.
The document, referred to as Form 2, is a declaration form made by a dual citizen. It requires details of the applicant’s name, address, habitual residence at the time of making the application, age and country of birth.
The applicant is required to declare his nationality and nature of his citizenship, whether by birth, registration or naturalization.
The document is then signed and validated by a magistrate or commissioner of oaths. The requirement to fill out this form, noted Dr Matiang’i, came after “someone went to court” with the claim that the procedure initially followed to regain Kenyan citizenship violated the law.
“We have two court rulings by the High Court on how you regain (Kenyan) citizenship after you lost it in the old Constitution that didn’t allow dual citizenship. When the new Constitution was enacted, which provides for dual citizenship, the process was prescribed in the Act on how to enable people to regain it,” he said.
He added: “We started doing it until someone went to court and said we were violating the law. Now you have to fill out a form. Since that time, over 300,000 Kenyans have regained their citizenship.”
On November 22, 2021, the High Court directed the government to grant Dr Miguna emergency travel documents so he could travel back to Kenya. The court also ordered that upon his return, he should apply for his passport upon landing, and for it to be issued within a week.
However, Dr Miguna alleged that staff at the Kenyan embassy in Berlin, Germany, had refused to serve him hence blocking his return.
At the time, he took to his Twitter account to say that the Kenyan ambassador left him with embassy officials, who told him that they had received orders from an unnamed person not to give him the form.
Dr Miguna would have traveled back home on November 16, 2021, but failed to do so after Air France declined to fly him over a red alert issued by the Kenyan government, a claim refuted by Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho.
