The National Resistance Movement (NRM) General Miguna Miguna has maintained that he is a Kenyan and that he did not renounce his Kenyan citizenship as the government claimed.
After being deported to Canada, Miguna released a lengthy message over the weekend, criticising Interior and Coordination Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiang'i, saying he was born in Kisumu and would remain to be a Kenyan, as shown below.
"MY CITIZENSHIP, MY IRREVOCABLE BIRTHRIGHT BY MIGUNA MIGUNA, FEBRUARY 10, 2018
I am a Kenyan citizen by birth.
Pursuant to Article 13(2) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, Kenyan citizenship may be acquired by birth or registration.I have never renounced my Kenyan citizenship.Importantly, Article 16(1) of the Constitution stipulates that, “A citizen by birth does not lose citizenship by acquiring the citizenship of another country.”
Canada does not require anyone applying for citizenship to renounce his or her citizenship.
Those claiming that I lost my Kenyan citizenship upon acquiring Canadian citizenship must produce credible documentary evidence proving the alleged renunciation or lose of my citizenship. They must also explain the existence of any other mythical legal principle that would have inflicted homicide on my birthright.
Whoever makes an allegation against someone has a positive duty to prove each element of his or her allegation.
Significantly, none of my accusers has tendered credible material evidence to validate their baseless and outrageous claims.
My Kenyan citizenship was irrevocably vested on me by my mother, Margaret Suré Nyar Njoga, in a small village called Magina, nestled along the shores of River Nyando in the Kano Plains.
My mother never had a birth certificate, passport, national identity card, a driver’s license or the Kenya Revenue Authority Personal Identification Number (PIN), yet no one doubted her citizenship. In other words, citizenship isn’t granted by government-issued documents.
Those documents are issued for the convenience of national authorities and those citizens who need them for identification, travel or for purposes of accessing credit facilities.
My Kenyan citizenship was a gift from God and our ancestors. Article 17 of the Constitution provides that “Only citizenship acquired by registration may be revoked.”
Citizenship is not vested or evidenced by a passport; the latter is a mere travel document issued to a citizen at a stipulated fee as a right under Article 12(a) of the Constitution.More than three quarters of Kenyans don’t possess and will never own a passport in their entire lives.
However, the fact that they neither need nor have passports doesn’t mean that they are less Kenyan than those who have passports.Therefore, no one – I mean absolutely no one – has power or authority to waive, vitiate, invalidate or cancel my citizenship on account that I have a Canadian passport or that I acquired Canadian citizenship.
Secondly, deportation is a legal process; not a whimsical declaration by a cabinet minister.
It requires written prior notice to the person to be deported and a corresponding right of response by the latter.
A neutral or impartial adjudicator or judicial officer must preside over a deportation hearing and determine whether or not it has sufficient legal grounds before the relevant minister may act on his or her intentions.No one can be validly deported on mere allegations.
For a judicial officer to order someone deported, the minister responsible must demonstrate through credible evidence the law that has been broken by the person to be deported; that the breaches amounting to deportable offences; and that only deportation would cure the offences.
This process of determination is a judicial process anchored in law and premised on credible evidence – not conjecture, bald allegations or political propaganda.
Accordingly, the arbitrary and draconian decision taken by one Fred Matiang’I purportedly deporting me is illegal and unconstitutional.
A Kenyan citizen by birth cannot lose his or her citizenship and would therefore not be subject to deportation."