Several members of the public woke up on June 19, 2021, to find themselves registered to political parties in a somewhat fraudulent manner, on the government's e-Citizen portal.
Taking to social media, Raila Odinga Jr., son to ODM Leader Raila Odinga revealed that he had been registered with Amani National Congress (ANC).
ANC is led by former Vice President Musalia Mudavadi.
Raila Jr. shared a screenshot of his e-Citizen page along with the caption, "Aiy ! What’s happening here?"
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He joined a number of Kenyans who voiced their frustration at discovering they were listed in different political parties.
The incident has raised numerous concerns among members of the public especially when the country is heading to a general election in 2022.
Those registered to the Mudavadi-led ANC, have no registration date.
For others, it emerged that they have registered to President Uhuru Kenyatta-led Jubilee Party since 2008, yet the party was formed in 2017.
ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru has since stated that some people may have been registered without their knowledge.
“We have provided people with the transparency they need to ensure their data is not being used without permission,” CS Mucheru stated.
“The political parties will be given the notice to facilitate for those who want out to be removed by the data commissioner. Don’t people forget that they signed up using USSD or even SMS and there are records? That said, it should be lauded that we have provided people the transparency and access to information,” he said.
Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu downplayed the happenings, terming it a pilot phase, and urged Kenyans that it was nothing to be worried about.
“As an office, we do not conduct registration of members for political parties, we are just custodian of their registers and therefore the data in these registers purely belongs to individual political parties,” she said.
Yesterday, Friday, June 18, Ms. Nderitu had revealed that her office would run a pilot programme that would allow Kenyans to check the status of their registration.
“There is nothing wrong with what we are doing, once we are done with consolidating this data, we shall issue a comprehensive statement on the way forward.
“We are happy that Kenyans have brought out the anomalies,” she said.
