NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 6 – Elected leaders from counties in the North Eastern and the North Rift have rejected the recently released National Census Report and threatened to challenge the data in court.
Majority Leader Aden Duale led more 18 MPs and three governors from Northern Kenya in questioning whether the results which were presented to President Uhuru Kenyatta on Monday are based on the actual remuneration conducted through digital data-capture devices in August.
The Garissa Township MP said the figures contradict Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) numbers collated in the 2009 census as there was no population growth indicated.
He accused unnamed officials in government of attempting to create a scenario where resources currently allocated to counties in the region are reduced due to low numbers of residents as reflected in the census.
“The game of the tyranny of numbers is not played in the boardrooms but in the bedroom,” Duale said.
“Don’t think that you can cook numbers. If you want to sustain your tyranny take it to the bedroom, not the boardroom.”
Wajir Governor Mohamed Abdi Mohamud called for a proper analysis on how the exercise was carried should be conducted to uncover what transpired.
“The census exercise that was recently carried out was a sham, in fact billions of public monies were sent nationwide but from we are seeing that are all the regions are complaining. I think we must have the whole exercise audited,” said Governor Mohamud.
Garissa Governor Ali Korane expressed concern that the region would get less money from the Treasury should it be shared according to the population distribution.
The duo said there was no way that their respective counties could register minimum population growth for the last ten years.
“There is an obsession with North Eastern. The results have done injustice to our region and Mbalambala risks losing its parliamentary seat due to low population results,” Korane said.
Meanwhile, MPs James Murgor (Keiyo North), Kangongo Bowen (Marakwet East) and Daniel Rono (Keiyo South), also dismissed the findings saying most of their constituents were not enumerated due to rampant cases of insecurity.
Bowen and Rono vowed to fight off any attempt to scrap constituencies in their counties in the planned boundary delineation process set for 2020.
“There is no way you can take away our constituencies which have been with us for well over 40 year. We know they will cite low population as one of the reasons,” Bowen stated.
At the same time, Samburu Woman Representative Maison Leshomo vowed to file complaints with KNBS over the count results.
KNBS Director-General Zachary Mwangi defended the figures, saying the numbers reflect Kenyans who were in the country at the time of the count in August.
“The results show population distribution, that is the number of people, number of households as well as the average size at national, county and sub county level per administrative unit. There is a difference between administrative unit and political unit,” Mwangi said through a statement.
