President Uhuru Kenyatta has directed chiefs across the country to distribute Identity Cards that remain uncollected.
This comes as it emerge that hundreds of thousands of national ID cards are still lying uncollected at various offices of the National Registration Bureau across the country, which is hindering voter registration.
While addressing journalists at Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri on Sunday, President Kenyatta insisted that it was part of the administrators’ duty to ensure all IDs are collected.
“We are telling chiefs not to just sit with the cards expecting people to come to you. They should go out and start handing them over,” he directed. “That is part of the service Kenyans expect and need.”
In the bureau’s offices in Central Kenya, more than 60,000 IDs are yet to be collected.
President Kenyatta said there is need for all leaders to sensitize Kenyans on the need of participating in the electoral process.
“The young people should be told what it means for them to fail to vote,” he said.
He however expressed optimism that the numbers were gradually rising as politicians lobby Kenyans who are yet to be registered as voters.
President Kenyatta has been on a vote hunt in the Mount Kenya region where has urged his supporters to register in large numbers.
“Do not let us down. Ensure you register as a voter so that you participate in choosing your leaders,” the Head of State appealed, noting there are more than 550,000 youths with national identity cards who have not registered as voters yet in Meru County.
He said it was not enough for them to claim to support Jubilee while they did not have voter’s card – the weapon that will secure the party’s victory in the next General Election.