KNBS says repeat of census as ordered by court a tall order

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) is faced with the huge dilemma of conducting a repeat census in parts of North Eastern Kenya following a court ruling that cancelled the 2019 results in Wajir, Mandera, and Garissa counties.

According to KNBS Director General Macdonald George Obudho, it will be a herculean task to conduct the census within the one-year timeline ordered by the court, as it usually takes about four years to plan. This is besides the massive resource allocation required.

The bureau will kick-start technical meetings on Monday next week to discuss the dynamics of implementing the court ruling, even as it consults on legal options.

"I will not start from 2019, but I will go back to the 2009 census. This is where the problem started. It was noted that the numbers were seriously exaggerated for certain places,” said Obudho.

During the launch of Volume 1 of the 2009 census results, the then Minister for Planning and National Development, Wycliffe Oparanya, red-carded results for eight districts, including Lagdera in Garissa, Mandera East, Mandera Central, Mandera West, Wajir East, Turkana North, Turkana South, and Turkana Central.

This move sparked the first round of a legal battle from leaders of the regions.

"It was a court battle for a number of years, and finally, the Court of Appeal allowed the bureau to use the smoothened numbers. So, we were able to smoothen the numbers to conform to reality. Remember, we are benefiting from the consistency of Kenyan censuses that have been done,” Obudho stated.

In 2020, another group of petitioners would again move to court to challenge the results of the 2019 census.

In their petition, Abdullahi Bashir Sheik and 24 others accused KNBS and four others of overseeing an anomaly, claiming that the 2019 census was not a factual representation of the total population in the region.

The petitioners claimed that the altering of the population numbers was deliberate and that it impacted their social, economic, and political standing, as other Kenyans stood to gain more resources.

"The 2009 numbers that are being referred to, which are being used for comparison to give a feeling that the 2019 numbers are suppressed, are the wrong numbers of 2009, which were extremely high,” the DG added.

The 2019 census was the sixth cycle of enumeration of the population since Kenya gained independence.

The process, which is conducted every ten years, usually begins four years before the actual census is done, with the drafting of a census project proposal that has to be subjected to thorough scrutiny before it is presented to the Ministry of Finance and Planning for budgetary approval.

This is then followed by a mapping of enumeration areas, recruitment and training of staff, and piloting, which is usually done a year before the actual enumeration is finally conducted and results published.

This makes the directive by the court for KNBS to conduct a fresh census in the affected counties within one year a hard nut to crack.

"I have called for a meeting on Monday where we are going to look at the issues raised by the court and the directive given, get to see how we are going to do it, what resources we will require, and what timelines we will employ so that everything falls within the one year. The other complication we have is that we have already started working on the census of 2029,” explained the DG.

In the meantime, KNBS says it is consulting its legal team on whether to take the route of challenging the High Court's ruling.