Kenya's Minorities and the African Crisis over Citizenship

The Politics of Aristotle, trans. by Ernest Barker ( New York, Oxford University Press, 1958 ), p. 93.

House of Representatives Debates (Kenya), Vol. I, Part II (29 November 1963), col. 2472. Some seventeen days before independence, Mboya was also quoted as saying, 'Expatriates who do not take up citizenship immediately on independence will be regarded as foreigners and enemies.' Reporter (Nairobi, 30 November 1963), p. 10.

About twenty-five Africans from neighbouring countries took citizenship. Statement by A. J. Omanga. Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Quoted in East African Standard (Nairobi, 26 August 1966), p. 17.

The Colonizer and the Colonized (Boston, Beacon Press, 1967), p. 68.

For a parallel situation, see my 'Rhodesian Rebellion and African Response', Africa Quarterly, Vol. VI, No. 3 (October-December 1966), pp. 189-190.

East African Standard (Nairobi, 11 August 1965), p. 5. Speech by Mahendra Patel. In fact, there was legal allowance under an amendment to the 1948 British Nationality Act for a few Asians choosing Kenya citizenship to recover British citizenship at a later date.

House of Representatives Debates (Kenya), Vol. IV, Second Session (26 February 1965), col. 314. It should be noted that this figure was in addition to upwards of a further 40,000 Asians who were automatic citizens at the time of independence.

House of Representatives Debates (Kenya), Vol. X, Fourth Session (13 December 1966), col. 2670. Comparative statistics of neighbouring countries following independence are also instructive. Tanzania, which had a large number of automatic citizens, granted citizenship to 21,557 people during and immediately after the grace period. Some 10,000 non-Africans submitted applications for citizenship in the last two weeks of the grace period (East African Standard, Nairobi, 26 August 1964), p. 7. On a subsequent occasion, the Minister for Home Affairs, Lawi Sijaona, told parliament that 2,052 persons had been granted citizenship in 1965 and 1966 (Nationalist, Dar es Salaam, 19 April 1967), p. 4. In Uganda, Minister for Internal Affairs, Basil Bataringaya, reported that 14,450 Asians had been registered as citizens and that 10,527 Asians had applied but had not yet been granted citizenship (Daily Nation, Nairobi, 27 April 1967), p. 24. In view of the changes regarding citizenship included in the Uganda Constitution of 1967, it is not clear what policy the government will adopt toward the latter category of people who qualified for citizenship under the Independence constitution but whose applications had not been processed by the time the 1967 basic law had come into effect. See The Constitution of the Republic of Uganda (Entebbe. Government Printer, 1967), Ch. II, and Uganda Argus ( Kampala, 31 August 1967), p. 4; (2 September 1967), p. 1; and (8 September 1967), p. 9.

Republic of Kenya. Statistical Abstract, 1966 ( Nairobi , Government Printer, 1966 ), p. 9.

East African Standard (Nairobi, 26 August 1966), p. 17.

House of Representatives Debates (Kenya), Vol. X, Fourth Session (27 September 1966), col. 14, and National Assembly Debates (Kenya), Vol. XII, Fifth Session (29 June 1967), cols. 1569-1570.

Ibid., Vol. XII, Fifth Session (29 June 1967), col. 1569.

National Assembly Debates (Kenya), Vol. XII, Fifth Session (20 July 1967), col. 2514. The editor of Reporter magazine concluded that the Immigration Department's handling of these applications was the 'one blot' on the government's otherwise spotless record of relations with non-citizens (Nairobi, 22 September 1967), p. 1.

Legislative Council Debates (Kenya), Vol. LXXXV, Fourth Session (3 May 1960), col. 165.

His message is reprinted in full by the Kenya Indian Congress in Kenya Independence-Day Souvenir (Nairobi, Kenya Indian Congress, 12 December 1963), p. 7.

National Assembly Debates (Kenya), Vol. XII, Fifth Session (11 July 1967), col. 1991.

India's official representative at Kenya's independence celebrations advised overseas Indians as follows: 'For those of you who have their roots here it will be wiser to take out Kenya citizenship and contribute fully towards its progress with talent and investment', East African Standard (Nairobi, 16 December 1963), p. 6. See also ibid. (25 November 1965), p. 5; (22 November 1965 ), p. 5; and (11 July 1964), p. 5; Daily Chronicle (Nairobi, 10 January 1961), p. 2.

Daily Nation (Nairobi, 8 October 1963), p. 5.

Daily Chronicle (Nairobi, 14 June 1961), p. 1, and East African Standard (Nairobi, 29 August 1964), p. 5.

A Humanist in Africa, Letters to Colin M. Morris from Kenneth D. Kaunda (London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1966), pp. 62-3.

Daily Nation (Nairobi, 19 September 1967), p. 17. Another major cause of the exodus was fear that the British government might place restrictions upon the immigration of East African's Asians. See Sunday Express (London, 10 September 1967), p. 1.

See, for example, House of Representatives Debates (Kenya), Vol. VIII, Third Session (23 February 1966), cols. 1321-1323, and Vol. X, Fourth Session (13 December 1966), cols. 2663-2664.

Legal Notice No. 179, Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 70 (25 August 1967), p. 319.

National Assembly Debates (Kenya), Vol. XII, Fifth Session (20 July 1967), col. 2501. Statement by the Minister for Labour, Dr. J. G. Kiano.

In this vein, Mr. J. M. Gachago, the Assistant Minister for Lands and Settlement, remarked on the Immigration Bill that '... we should give the Bill a chance, let us see what it does for the country, let us see what it does to unite those who are foreign to Kenya with the indigenous people of this country....' National Assembly Debates (Kenya), Vol. XII, Fifth Session (28 July 1967), col. 2932.

Daily Nation (Nairobi, 30 December 1966), p. 32.

East African Standard (Nairobi, 30 August 1967), p. 7 (and 31 August 1967), p. 5.

National Assembly Debates (Kenya), Vol. XII, Fifth Session (21 June 1967), cols. 1241-1242.

East African Standard (Nairobi, 29 June 1967), p. 5.

Ibid. (4 October 1967), p. 1.

Republic of Kenya, Kenyanization of Personnel in the Private Sector (Nairobi, Government Printer , 1967), p. 1.

See the statement by Attorney-General Charles Njonjo in the East African Standard (Nairobi, 20 September 1967), p. 9. Mr. A.J. Pandya , the member for Mombasa Central, made a similar point: Daily Nation (Nairobi, 14 September 1967), p. 1. Liberia's constitution, for instance, which provides that only persons of Negro ancestry may secure citizenship, would seem to bear this contention out. J. Gus Liebenow, 'Liberia', in African One-Party States, ed. by Gwendolen M. Carter (Ithaca, Cornell Univ. Press, 1962). p. 347. In addition, it is significant that in the autumn of 1967, Mr. Justice Banja Tejon-Sie, the Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, delivered a constitutional judgment declaring void constitutional amendments introduced after independence which, in effect, made it impossible for residents of mixed descent to be full citizens, even though they had been full citizens at the time of independence. Reported in West Africa (11 November 1967), p. 1442.

Kenyanization of Personnel., p. 4.

East African Standard (Nairobi, 29 October 1966), p. 4, and National Assembly Debates (Kenya), Vol. XII, Fifth Session (11 July 1967), col. 1991. Statements by J. Nyamweya and C. Njonjo.

Regarding the Asians of East Africa, Tanzania's Assistant Minister of Health, Lucy Lameck, stated: 'Their business here is to make money. They don't care one way or the other about development. Some who have been lucky to acquire East African citizenship are using this as passports to make more money. They have no other interest whatsoever.' Interview in The People (Kampala, 17 December 1966), p. 9. For other Tanzanian attacks on 'paper citizenship', see the Nationalist ( Dar es Salaam) (29 November 1966), p. 4; (17 August 1967), p. 4; (28 August 1967), p. 4; (and 4 September 1967), p. 4.

Daily Nation (Nairobi, 29 June 1967), p. 6. Letter to the Editor.

East African Standard (Nairobi, 20 July 1965), p. 2.

House of Representatives Debates (Kenya), Vol. IX, Fourth Session (16 July 1966), cols. 1905-1906.

East African Standard (Nairobi, 20 February 1967), p. 5.

National Assembly Debates (Kenya), Vol. XI, Fifth Session (21 February 1967), col. 200. On exploitation, see the letter to the editor by Benjamin S. Ashihundu in the Daily Nation (Nairobi, 7 October 1967), p. 6.

See the statement by Z. M. Anyieni in House of Representatives Debates (Kenya), Vol. III, Second Session (7 October 1964), col. 3252.

Yash P. Ghai , 'The Future Prospects', in Portrait of a Minority: Asians in East Africa, ed. by Dharam P. Ghai (Nairobi, Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 137-8.

For a good example of trade union pressure on government see the report of a meeting of the Kenya African Wholesalers' and Distributors' Organisation in the East African Standard (Nairobi, 24 July 1967), p. 5.

Some observers have been quick to detect a partial connection between this directive and the army mutinies which followed shortly afterward. See my 'African Nationalism and Racial Minorities', East Africa Journal (Vol. II, No. 8, December 1965), p. 19

; and Henry Bienen , Tanzania: Party Transformation and Economic Development ( Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 369.

East African Standard (Nairobi, 10 January 1964), p. 15.

See Gunnar Myrdal , An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy ( New York, Harper and Row, 1962), p. lxxi.