A High Court in Garissa has nullified the 2019 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) census results for Wajir, Garissa, and Mandera counties, citing glaring irregularities.
The court on Tuesday found that the KNBS failed to uphold fundamental data integrity standards, leading to inaccurate population figures for the affected regions.
Justice John Onyiego, in his ruling, dismissed the census results for Mandera North, Mandera South, Mandera East, Mandera West, Lafey, and Banisa sub-counties in Mandera County.
The judge also annulled the results of nearly all Garissa sub-counties, including those from Balambala, Lagdera, Dadaab, and Garissa townships. In Wajir, Justice Onyiego cancelled the results for Eldas, Tarbaj, Wajir West, Wajir North, and Wajir East.
While delivering the ruling, the judge ordered KNBS to conduct a fresh round of census in all the affected sub-counties within one year from the date of the judgement.
Following the directive, the court called on the residents of the affected counties to use the 2009 census data until KNBS completed conducting fresh population statistics.
“That an order of prohibition do and is hereby issued prohibiting the 2nd, 3rd and 4th respondents from relying on or in any other way from utilizing the disputed published 2019 KPHC results under Articles 215, 216 and 89,” the court directed.
The ruling followed a consolidated petition filed by several politicians from the three counties led by Senator Yusuf Haji who moved to court to challenge the 2019 KNBS census results.
According to the petitioners, the results released by the Bureau of Statistics were not a true reflection of the actual enumerated population on the ground.
They therefore accused KNBS of interfering with their population census results, grossly adjusting them downwards, which negatively impacted the social, economic, and political standing of the region.
Meanwhile, KNBS, in its defence, explained how they visited various countries for benchmarking before carrying out the census exercises.
KNBS Director General McDonald George, while appearing before the court, stated that during the 2019 census, they did not conduct a post-census evaluation survey as it was expensive, forcing them to apply a different method.
He further stated that during the 2009 census, figures in the Northeastern region were inflated, leading to adjustments by smoothing in the 2019 census. However, he maintained that the 2019 overall results were accurate.
