The Miguna Miguna Saga

Miguna Miguna

There has been a political saga that has dominated the news cycle here in Kenya for the last week and a half. As far as I can tell, it has gone unnoticed by the British media. It all revolves around the Lawyer, Dr. Miguna Miguna and his attempts to re-enter Kenya following his deportation to Canada.

Miguna Miguna claims to hold dual citizenship of Canada and Kenya, having been born in Kenya and holding Kenyan identity documents. This claim is supported by the constitution and Judiciary of Kenya. The government of Uhuru Kenyatta expelled Miguna for his involvement in the controversial swearing in of Raila Odinga in late January. Odinga is the leader of the opposition to Kenyatta’s rule.

In 2017, there were two controversial elections that were mired in allegations of vote fixing, partly stemming from the electronic voting system that is in place in Kenya. The first of these elections was contested on the 8^th August and subsequently nullified by the Kenyan Supreme Court. It was ahead of this election where Chris Msando, the head of IT security was found dead with signs of torture on his corpse. The re-run was scheduled for the 26^th October, however, claiming no faith in the validity of the election, Odinga refused to run. Naturally, Kenyatta won by a landslide due to the absence of any major opposition.

On the 30^th January, Odinga and his party took the unprecedented step of swearing him in as president, disregarding the result of the election. This led to violence in Odinga strongholds, mainly Luo ethnic areas. This was a hugely controversial event that threatened to plunge the country into violence of the likes seen in 2007.

Following this ceremony, Miguna Miguna was targeted by the government due to his vocal role in these proceedings. Miguna is the Self-Procalimed ‘General’ of the banned National Resistance Movement, an extreme wing of the overall opposition to Kenyatta’s rule. He was deported in mid-February and his Kenyan passport seized by the Immigration Department. This precipitated a legal battle and an eventual High Court ruling for the passport to be transferred to court custody.

On Sunday 25^th of April, Miguna decided to return to Kenya from Canada. En-Route he ‘lost’ the Canadian passport that he was travelling on, instead presenting his Kenyan ID cards at the airport. These were refused by the Immigration Department as these were different documents to the ones with which he travelled; a violation of international travel rules. They requested he sign documents to reclaim his Kenyan citizenship by birth right, however, Miguna refused to do this, claiming that he never lost his citizenship in the first place, citing constitutional rules.

This led to a 3-day standoff in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, where Miguna claimed to been held hostage in an airport toilet. I am very glad that we arrived a week before this drama as we might not have been able to leave the airport that was placed in partial shutdown. Various videos emerged of fruitless scuffles in the Airport terminal, with one video of Miguna being physically shoved onto an Emirates plane. This plane was unable to take off as Miguna managed to block the door from being closed.

Video of this scuffle made it onto National News.

Eventually, in very unclear circumstances, Miguna Miguna was drugged and placed aboard another emirates plane back to Dubai as an undocumented passenger. He is currently recovering from his ordeal in the UAE, with the whole of Kenya waiting with baited breath to see what comes next. The political fallout from this incident has been massive with the government and judiciary at loggerheads over a series of ignored court rulings supporting Miguna’s claims. Furthermore, they have sentenced many of the key figures within the government that enacted these measures against Miguna.

Miguna Miguna recovering in hospital.

Whilst much of this incident has been ridiculous, bordering on comical, it deals with some very heavy facts within Kenyan politics. It is unclear how this will play out as Raila Odinga is currently in fragile coalition government with Uhuru Kenyatta. Only time will tell how such political passions play out, with the stakes remaining incredibly high for many ordinary Kenyans in volatile areas.

(DISCLAIMER: This was written with the best facts available to me at the time of writing and no opinions are held within this account are my own)