A group of youths drawn from the Gikiyu, Embu and Meru (GEMA) communities living in Mombasa county have raised concerns over the Kenya Defense Force's (KDF) recruitment process.The youths led by Waithaka Macharia and Daniel Muange lamented that most of them miss out on being selected for having Identity Cards (IDs) that indicates that they are not from Mombasa county.They said despite their IDs indicating that they are from other county, they were born in Mombasa and should be treated like locals."Our GEMA youth should be treated as residents of Mombasa County. Those who were born here by parents who moved to this county from different parts of the country are residents of this county and here is where they should be recruited into KDF From," Macharia said in Mombasa on Saturday."In the past, a majority of the GEMA youths in this county are compelled to travel to their home counties to participate in the KDF recruitment exercise as their ID cards read they were from different counties," Muage added.They have appealed to President Uhuru Kenyatta and the Defence Cabinet Secretary Rachael Omamo to help push for the revision of requirements to join KDF."The upcoming army recruitment exercise is well organized but some of our Gema youth and others from upcountry are usually frustrated," Macharia noted.The Ministry of Defense on Thursday announced tentative dates, venues and schedules for the recruitment exercise that will see servicemen and women, constables and tradesmen and women join KDF.The exercise will take place between February 12 to March 13 of this year.

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