Get Huduma Namba or face arrest, official says

People who will not have registered for the Huduma Namba by the deadline date could be considered foreigners and a threat to national security, Tana River County Commissioner Oning'oi Ole'sosio has said.

In an interview, Mr Ole'sosio said the registration is necessary to guarantee national security and ensure efficient delivery of services. He said that those against it had a hidden agenda.

"Last year after the abduction of an Italian volunteer by militia, we arrested one of the key suspects connected to the subsequent murder. He had an ID but when we forwarded it to the National Registration Bureau, we were told the owner of the document was deceased," he said.

He added that the county security team had discovered a syndicate involving people from a certain community who routinely hire out their ID cards to foreigners to facilitate them in criminal activities.

Some people were reporting their IDs as lost in order to obtain new ones, he said, noting that such incidents had forced the security team to restrict registration for IDs in Tana Delta to the county commissioner’s office.