Kenyans were horrified last week when they woke up to the news that a Sudanese militant and brother of the commander of the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan was said to hold a Kenyan passport. Algoney Dagalo was sanctioned by the United States for war crimes, with the US saying he held a Kenyan passport and a UAE identity card.

A day later, Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi released a leaked document from the Directorate of Immigration department listing at least 28 foreign nationals who were supplied with Kenyan passports. On the list were several members of the Dagalo family as well as other Sudanese nationals.

Also on the list is an infamous Zimbabwean ‘businessman’, Wicknel Chivayo. Chivayo is known for his controversial involvement in government tenders and flamboyant lifestyle… and for being Zimbabwean.

The list, posted on X, showed that the foreigners were provided with Kenyan passports between the years 2024 and 2026. While Kenyans were incensed by the news as it broke on all news platforms, there was a deafening silence from the Department of Immigration and the government as a whole. It almost feels like one of the many scandals we have faced as a country. We expose them, there's a public outcry for accountability, but the government just turns blind, deaf and mute until we move on to the next issue of the day.

The fact of the matter remains that it has been proven that several foreign nationals with no real ties to Kenya have been supplied with a document that most Kenyans do not have. Those of us who apply for passports have to jump through hoops to get this document that is our birthright.

I found myself particularly incensed by this story because I am in the process of procuring a Kenyan passport for my six-month-old child born in a foreign country. As Kenyans living abroad, we have to go through the embassies as mediators for any documents we need from home. The rule is that even though my child is Kenyan by birth in a foreign land, he must first be issued a Kenyan birth certificate, which does not make sense as he is issued a birth certificate of the country he is born in, including a recognised international birth certificate.

To apply for the birth certificate, I had to provide several notarised documents up to and including my foreign residency card (which has nothing to do with proving my Kenyanness), and pay the equivalent of Sh21,000. A stark difference to the Sh1,000 I paid for my first child's birth certificate as he was born in Kenya.

Notarised documents also cost upwards of Sh5,000 per page. Posting and all duty fees are also shouldered by the applicant. It is only after receiving the birth certificate that I can move forward and apply for the Kenyan passport for my child. A process I am certain will be more daunting than the last.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Immigration department lies a file with all my family members in it. Including my grandfather, father, siblings and my oldest child. Why? We all share the same file number holding documents proving our kinship and ties to the land. Yet, I must jump through hurdles and swim through rough tides to procure a travel document for my second child.

There is also the matter of national pride. Whenever I approach a customs officer in a foreign country and hand over my blue EAC passport, I am confident in the “non-issue” of my citizenship. Our country is one of the few African countries that doesn't mandate an extra security screening because we don't fall on their radar of problematic countries. Travelling as a Kenyan has always been pretty breezy because of this fact. All this is about to change now that we are known as the country that sells its citizenship to the highest bidder.

Our national security is being threatened because of corruption and greed. Our own people are queuing up for days at the immigration services and given very bad treatment, yet foreigners with criminal backgrounds are simply sold our birthright.