How Orengo-Wanjigi passport drama unfolded at JKIA

Siaya Senator James Orengo and businessman Jimi Wanjigi have finally been allowed to leave the country for Harare, Zimbabwe after getting back their passports.

The two were set to depart at 1.40pm on Tuesday after spending Monday night at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport where Immigration Department officials blocked their travel despite a court order allowing them to travel out of the country.

Even as the two jet out of the country to attend the burial of Zimbabwe’s opposition icon Morgan Tsvangirai, the government is once again on the spot over perceived contempt of court.

In a statement sent to newsrooms on Tuesday morning, Director of Immigration Services Gordon Kihalangwa said by the time Orengo and Wanjigi arrived at the airport at 9.30pm, the order that had earlier suspended their passports was still in force.

On Monday, Judge John Mativo temporarily lifted the government decision to suspend passports of seven key opposition figures among them Orengo, Wanjigi and NASA strategist David Ndii pending the hearing of a case they filed on the same matter.

Kihalangwa, however, claimed that the Immigration department was not served with the court order lifting a suspension of their passports, a position contradicted by Orengo.

“We learnt through the media that the court had granted orders that the Immigration department should not interfere with the movements of the two… The department of Immigration shall always comply with Court orders upon being served in the prescribed manner as required by Law,” said Kihalangwa.

Addressing the media at the airport Orengo said: “When we got here, in my passport they had stamped it with the endorsement Exit which meant I could leave. But when Wanjigi presented his passport, all went bonkers. They took it and run away with it upstairs and came back and told him they could not allow him to leave,” said Orengo.

The Siaya Senator further said that when the officials returned, they changed tune and also told him that he could not be allowed to fly out despite his passport being stamped for him to leave.

Orengo insisted that they were deliberately barred from travelling, adding that the Immigration department boss had already been served with the court order even before they arrived at the airport.

“The Director of Immigration gave back our passports this morning without court orders, which means he already had information and was in possession of those court orders,” he said.

They accused the immigration department of disregarding the court order, vowing that they would seek legal redress to have officials at the Airport and the Immigration department personally held liable for apparent contempt of court.

“We will be considering going for the individuals in their own individual names not going for the  State as an  amorphous entity. They will bare personal responsibility for all that they have done in disobedience of the court order and further infringement of the rights of my clients,”said Lawyer Willis Otieno.

“We want public officers who try to hide behind officialdom to disobey court orders, to start taking personal liability for such actions.”

Orengo condemned the government for leaving them stranded at the airport describing the move as “terribly inconveniencing and humiliating.”