Will Kenya’s Ruto Finally Reconcile with the Country’s Somali Minority?
Key takeaways
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- On June 1 this year, President William Ruto stood before a crowd in the town of Wajir as the first Kenyan head of state to officiate the country’s national celebration of internal self-rule in the northeastern region.
- In his address, Ruto recounted the story of a man born in Wajir in the early 1960s, to parents also born there, who had spent decades trying and failing to obtain a national identity card.
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On June 1 this year, President William Ruto stood before a crowd in the town of Wajir as the first Kenyan head of state to officiate the country’s national celebration of internal self-rule in the northeastern region. Ruto had come to Wajir with a basket laden with goodies. In February 2025, he had signed a presidential proclamation in the same city, abolishing a 60-year-old vetting requirement that had forced ethnic Somalis and other border communities to prove their Kenyan identity before the government would issue them an identity card. The extra vetting requirement dates back to security measures put in place after independence, when Somali irredentist claims sparked the Shifta War of 1963-1967.
In his address, Ruto recounted the story of a man born in Wajir in the early 1960s, to parents also born there, who had spent decades trying and failing to obtain a national identity card. The man, Bakaja Ibrahim Osman, was turned away each time, treated, as Ruto put it, “not as a Kenyan, but as a suspect.”