Voter listing resumes on disputed Migingo Island

A view of Migingo Island in Lake Victoria. Voter registration by the IEBC has resumed in the island. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Fishermen and traders on the Island heaved a sigh of relief on Friday after Kenyan government officials announced that the voter enlisting exercise will continue as had been planned.
  • Last month, the Nation highlighted the plight of the Migingo Kenyan fishermen who were yearning to be enlisted as voters.
  • The Ugandan security team is estimated to be more than 20, including those in civilian clothing, while the Kenyan group is only 12.

Voter registration has resumed on the disputed Migingo Island.

This comes just two days after Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) clerks arrested by Ugandan security officials were released.

Fishermen and traders on the island heaved a sigh of relief on Friday after Kenyan government officials announced that the voter listing would continue as had been planned.

“I spoke to the Ugandan authorities and I reminded them that Migingo is a gazetted polling station in Kenya and there was no way we would suspend the important exercise,” said Mr James Namtala, the Migori Deputy County Commissioner in charge of Nyatike Sub-County.

Mr Namtala said he had spoken to regional security officials in Namaingo District in Uganda.

“Our police officers, who are co-manning Migingo with the Ugandan counterparts, are under strict instructions to make sure peace prevails in Migingo during the exercise,” he noted.

REQUESTED FOR PERMISSION

The Ugandan security forces had also confiscated the IEBC’s biometric voter registration equipment, claiming that the “foreigners had not requested permission to carry out the activity”.

“We are treating the electoral body employees as foreigners because as far we are concerned, Migingo is part of Uganda.

“We are still waiting for the green light from Kampala to allow them to enlist Kenyans working here,” a Ugandan police officer told the Nation on Tuesday soon after the arrest.

The IEBC clerks, however, stayed put on Migingo, hoping that the stalemate would be resolved immediately and they would later be set free.

The registration clerks had gone to the island to register Kenyan voters working there as fishermen and traders.

“We had asked the IEBC to bring us their officials to enlist us before the expiry of the mass voter registration period, but we were shocked by the interference from the neighbours,” said Mr John Obunge, the chairman of the Migingo beach management unit.

Last month, the Nation highlighted the plight of Kenyan fishermen on Migingo who were yearning to be listed as voters.

They said since they had an assistant chief, the island was recognised as part of Kenya.

“Although the ownership row has not been conclusively addressed by the Kenya and Ugandan authorities, Kenyan fishermen and traders living on the island deserve to be registered as voters,” said Mr Obunge.

In the last elections, the IEBC created a polling station on the island following pressure from locals and the fishermen got an opportunity to vote.

According to Mr Obunge, the island has about 500 fishermen and traders whose right to vote he said should be respected.

The fish-rich island is co-managed by Kenyan and Ugandan security officers.

The Ugandan security team is estimated to be more than 20, including plain-clothes officers, while the Kenyan group numbers only 12.

The two East African Community countries have staked a claim to the island, a row that has lasted since 2002.

The two countries had set aside Sh140 million for surveyors to complete their work of determining the exact location of the densely populated island.

Although then President Mwai Kibaki and then Prime Minister Raila Odinga had been assuring Kenyans that the island s located within Kenyan territorial waters, the two leaders seemed to have done little to get the survey work completed during their tenure.

The joint survey work stalled after the Ugandan surveyors pulled out of the team midstream ostensibly to consult their seniors in Kampala before the announcement of the final outcome.

But sources indicated that the Ugandan officials were worried about being a party to an announcement that the island is in Kenya, fearing possible reprisals from their government.