On June 1 this year, President William Ruto stood in front of a crowd of people in the town of Wajir as the first Kenyan president to preside over the national celebrations of local self-government in the northeast region. Ruto had come to Wajir with a basket full of good things. In February 2025, he had signed a presidential proclamation in the same city, stop the 60-year-old verification requirement that forced ethnic Somalis and other border communities to prove their Kenyan identity before the government would issue them ID cards. An additional requirement for investigation dates back to the security measures put in place after independence, when claims by unknown Somalis triggered the 1963-1967 Shifta War.
In his speech, Ruto told 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 get a national identity card. The man, Bakaja Ibrahim Osman, was always dismissed, treated like Ruto to put it“not as a Kenyan, but as a suspect.”
On June 1 this year, President William Ruto stood in front of a crowd of people in the town of Wajir as the first Kenyan president to preside over the national celebrations of local self-government in the northeast region. Ruto had come to Wajir with a basket full of good things. In February 2025, he had signed a presidential proclamation in the same city, stop the 60-year-old verification requirement that forced ethnic Somalis and other border communities to prove their Kenyan identity before the government would issue them ID cards. An additional requirement for investigation dates back to the security measures put in place after independence, when claims by unknown Somalis triggered the 1963-1967 Shifta War.
In his speech, Ruto told 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 get a national identity card. The man, Bakaja Ibrahim Osman, was always dismissed, treated like Ruto to put it“not as a Kenyan, but as a suspect.”
The story went down well with the cheering crowd, many of whom had similar accounts of questionable treatment when they sought to obtain national IDs and registration documents. By the end of the event, the Wajir council of elders, through Governor Ahmed Abdullahi, was it promised giving Ruto 100 camels. It was a sign of gratitude that, in the herding culture of the Somali community, carries the weight of life.
Ruto’s dramatic reach in northern Kenya reflects a long-term attempt to integrate with the macho political calculus. While many Somali Kenyans see it as a real development after decades of isolation, critics argue that the move is motivated more by Ruto’s need to find new voting bases as his support in central Kenya dwindles.
Whether this manipulation will lead to a lasting faith in equal citizenship—or remain a temporary electoral tactic—is a question that will likely be answered at the ballot box in 2027.
To really understand why Ruto’s recent actions are important and why they continue to evoke emotions, it is important to go back to the early years after Kenya’s independence. It was then that the ethnic Somalis in what was called the Northern Frontier District at that time tried hard to separate and join Somalia.
The Kenyan government quickly named the rebels “shift”—the Somali word for bandit—in a move intended to strip the rebellion of any political legitimacy. Beginning in November 1963, the military fought: The ensuing campaign included aerial bombardments as well as the coercion of herders and the killing of their livestock.
In 1967, a cease-fire was signed—not by the rebels themselves but between Nairobi and Mogadishu. As a result, the Kenyan government did not provide relief to the suffering population in the northeast of the country. Indeed, low-level insurgency continued. The regional state of emergency was not lifted until 1991, leaving the northeast under a separate legal regime from the rest of the country. According to one accountwritten by Samar al-Bulushi: “During this time, military attempts to disarm the locals took the form of state terrorism, with the killing of at least 2,000 Somalis by the Kenyan army near Wagalla in 1984 as a famous example.”
During this time, Kenya’s national identity policies reinforced the status of Somalis as second-class citizens. Unlike most Kenyans, ethnic Somalis seeking identity documents were required to appear before a multi-agency security committee comprising officers from the National Intelligence Service, local chiefs, police and community elders. Here, they were expected to provide additional documents, including the national identity documents of their grandparents.
The critics long said that the system made many indigenous Kenyans stateless in their country. Without ID, voting, accessing public hospitals, opening a bank account, or enrolling in a university became difficult things that could last for years.
Every administration in Kenya until Ruto maintained this system. On his part, Ruto presented his new policy as a result of democratic principles. “We want the people of northern Kenya to feel the same as the rest of the country,” Ruto said he said when he signed the decree in Wajir on February 5, 2025. “This country belongs to all of us, and we must develop all corners of Kenya equally.”
For societies that had lived under censorship for generations, the announcement was historic, and the celebrations were real. Health Secretary Aden Duale, a famous Kenyan from Somalia, he told the gathering in Wajir County where under Ruto’s administration, Somalis in Kenya had achieved unprecedented political freedom, saying that “Somalis in Kenya have now achieved freedom.”
However this does not it means that Ruto’s action was just as principled as he claimed. Ruto is also a politician who needs votes.
A May vote found that Ruto was the most preferred presidential candidate nationally, but with only 24 percent of his support. At the same time, three-quarters of Kenyans polled supported other candidates or were undecided.
To make matters worse, Ruto’s system of governing with the late former Prime Minister Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) has been beset by political turmoil following Odinga’s death in October. A factional war has broken out within ODM, with some powerful people now opposing the alliance and Ruto’s bid to be re-elected. Adding to these challenges, central Kenya—the area where Ruto once ruled—is now at loggerheads with his former deputy, Rigathi Gachagua.
As a result of this political pressure, registered voters in Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Isiolo, and Marsabit are now seen as a valuable prize that Ruto is chasing. Opposition leader Kalonzo Musyoka, who is a former vice president, has been fierce in his criticism, claiming that Ruto scrapped the old vetting laws specifically to attract more northern votes for 2027.
“This guy (Ruto) has grown cold,” Kalonzo to be mocked. “These people think they can get a vote here and there, voluntarily giving out IDs.”
Leaders in the North-East have hit back with equal force, arguing, understandably, that justice does not diminish just because it happens to be right around the time of an election. Furthermore, they question whether justice has really been served.
An investigation published in December by Kenya Bringing the News to Life found that abolishing the review committees did not free applicants to pay for their documents. It had just changed who was charging them. A 19-year-old student in Garissa identified as Abdi described a six-month wait for a registration document that was pointless.
“The government said the review is over,” he said. “But the officer at the desk says the system is ‘hanging.’ The man outside says for KES 15,000, the system will work overnight. Directorate of Criminal Investigation confirmed the magnitude of the problem, leading to the arrest of 26 officers accused of giving real documents to unverified people in order to get cash.
Scandals like these have prompted researchers in the Social Science Research Council’s Peace Building project to argue that Ruto’s announcement is the opening of more difficult negotiations. They believe that unless Kenya removes the “entire architecture of suspicion” built around its Somali citizens for over a century, citizenship will continue to be conditional, even if the papers are easy to obtain.
Therefore, it is a positive sign that Ruto’s move towards the north-east extends beyond identity reform. He made history by choosing Wajir to host this year’s Independence Day celebrations. He has also significantly increased the visibility of Kenyan Somali politicians in his cabinet and government, appointing several to prominent positions. In terms of development, the Ruto administration has implemented a number of high-profile infrastructure commitments, especially the Isiolo-Wajir-Mandera road project worth about 800 million dollars.
Collectively, the full-court press is highly visible and deliberate. The opposition reads it as a ploy to win local votes, but Ruto’s supporters in the northeast see it as long-term recognition by the government.
Ruto is likely to step up his outreach in northern Kenya between now and the August 2027 election. This could mean more development promises, additional cabinet posts for Somali leaders, and faster work on major projects. What happens next will probably depend on whether these efforts pay off at the ballot box. If he sees strong support in a by-election or poll, he is likely to offer more in the future. But if the region responds calmly, he could slow down or impose tougher conditions on future commitments.
Ultimately, the success of Ruto’s campaign to reconcile Kenya’s Somali minority will depend more on politics than principles.
