Raila Odinga’s son Raila Junior is among hundred of Kenyans who just discovered they are listed as members of political parties without ever registering.
In what could turn out to be the biggest data breach in the recent past, most of those who took to social media to complain wondered how the said parties accessed persoanl details like full names and national identifaction numbers.
Raila Junior for instance is registered as a member of Musalai Mudavadi’s Amani National Congress (ANC) party when ordinarily many would expect him to be a member of his father’s ODM party.
He also took to social media wondering how he is listed as an ANC member with his followers expressing similar concerns.
It all started on Friday when the Office of Registrar of Political Parties sent out a notice stating it is piloting an online service to enable Kenyans to check their memberships to political parties.
“..This office is piloting an online service on eCitizen for members of the. public to check their political party membership…and give feedback,” reads the notice signed by Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu.
What followed were hundreds of social media complaints across Facebook and Twitter by Kenyans disgruntled at how they were listed as members of parties they do not even support in the first place.
Whether by coincidence or design, it is clear political parties have greatly overstated their membership numbers by illegally using the personal information of millions of Kenyans.
It remains to be seen how seen how the registrar of political parties shall respond to the numerous concerns about unauthorised use of personal information to fill up party membership numbers.
This also means political parties could have been flaunting fake numbers at the Registrar of Political Parties ahead of party primaries for the 2022 General Election.
