KAIKAI'S KICKER: RSF passports...bei ya Jioni!

On my kicker tonight, it is goons, teargas and passports; bei ya jioni! Take your pick; one, two or all three? They are available… kama dawa ya mende… and at prices that I suspect are unbelievably favourable… bei ya kufunga nchi.. sorry, bei ya kufunga siku… Fellow Kenyans, this is not funny. This is dangerously alarming.

What the heck is going on? What is happening to our statehood? What happened to state craft? Is it true the Immigration Department is serving passports to foreigners like popcorns to movie goers? Is it true that foreign crime against humanity suspects are now proud holders of Kenyan passports?

As a reporter some years back, I witnessed firsthand the atrocities and suffering visited upon non-Arab citizens of Sudan by an Arab militia group called the ‘Janjaweed’. I visited the strife-torn Darfur region and the camps of the internally displaced where I saw non-Arab Sudan citizens nursing varied wounds from burns to bullet wounds and injuries from severe whip lashes used by the Janjaweed.

Now, the Janjaweed is the precursor to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF); meaning the RSF was founded out of the Janjaweed. The RSF is led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo also known as Hemedti. He is a native of Darfur, the place that founded the Janjaweed. Besides leading the RSF in its war against the Government of Sudan, Hemedti is described as a wealthy and influential gold merchant. Of importance to Kenyans, Hemedti is considered close to President William Ruto who on the steps of State House once told the Sudan rebel leader; ‘Welcome to your second home.’

At a diplomatic level, diplomatic observers would struggle to trace any strategic principle or philosophical grounding of relevance to Kenya’s national interests in the dalliance between President Ruto’s administration and the RSF. But when Kenyan passports start flying out of Nyayo House like confetti, Kenyans must start paying attention. Passports are some of the most solemn symbols of citizenship. They confer identity and a sense of national belonging and above all, the freedom to travel around the world.

If you have a passport, just open the second page and see what it contains. Another solemn write up; a request made in the name of the President of Kenya to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance… and a request to all it may concern to afford the passport bearer whatever assistance and protection as may be necessary. This request is made in the name of the President of the Republic of Kenya; it is that solemn, that serious, that consequential.

What this means is a Kenyan passport cannot be issued recklessly. Each bearer of a Kenyan passport becomes our representative at any immigration counter. So, when the American Government sanctioned an RSF leader holding a Kenyan passport, it is our national flag and national reputation at stake and worse still, not for national reasons. As we talk about the Rapid Support Forces, we should as well discuss the rapid decline in standards of statehood and statecraft. In the boring old days, goons, passports and teargas canisters never came this cheap. Ni bei ya jioni.

That is my kicker.