Kenya: Deportation card not new strategy to silence critics

Published: 10/Feb/2018
Source: The Nation (Kenya)

By OSCAR OBONYO

Before last week’s dramatic deportation of self declared general of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Dr Miguna Miguna to Canada, there was a vocal Mombasa politician Ahmed Bamahriz who, when threatened with deportation by retired President Daniel arap Moi, retorted that Moi too should be dispatched to the country of Sudan.

“Iwapo kweli mababu zangu wana asilia ya Yemen, basi tuandamane na Rais Moi kwenye ndege ile ile mtakayonisafirisha, ili Moi ashukishwe kwanza kwao nchini Sudan (If it is indeed true that my roots are in Yemen, then put me on the same flight back home with President Moi so we drop him home first in Sudan),” Bamahriz, founder member of the Forum for Restoration of Democracy (Ford) in 1992, reacted.

Five years later, ahead of the 1997 elections, the Moi government stripped another Mombasa opposition politician and preacher, Sheikh Balala, of his Kenyan citizenship.

Themes: Loss and Deprivation of Nationality, Nationality of Politicians
Regions: Kenya
Year: 2018