The Kenyan flag. [PHOTO/istockphoto.com]
With the secession talk dominating Kenyan politics amidst heated power struggles in the country, two people have moved to court to petition for secession.
Mathew Mwilitsa and Alex Misigo, residents of Western Kenya, now want a referendum to enable the Western region to secede.
Justice Chacha Mwita on Monday directed them to serve their suit papers to the Governments of Britain, Uganda and Kenya and then go back to court for further directions on October 18.
The two want the former Eastern Province of Uganda that stretched from Jinja (present-day Uganda) up to the Suswa region in Narok secede from Kenya.
They argue that Uganda's former Eastern Province was transferred to Kenya (the British East Africa Protectorate) on April 1, 1902 without consulting the local inhabitants.
They say that they lived in a cohesive, homogeneous and united kingdom under leadership of King Nabongo Mumia in the years between 1895 and 1962 and that the forced merger destroyed their socio-cultural fabric.