NAIROBI (GG) — Kenyan immigration authorities have deported Somalia’s Second Deputy Prime Minister, Jibril Abdirashid Haji, following an airport standoff regarding allegations that he possessed an illegally obtained Kenyan passport.
According to an official police report filed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) police station, the high-profile diplomatic incident unfolded after Haji arrived in Nairobi from Mogadishu on a commercial Saacid Airlines flight. Although the senior Somali official presented a valid Somali diplomatic passport equipped with an official Kenyan entry visa during routine border clearance, immigration personnel flagged him under suspicion of simultaneously holding dual Kenyan citizenship documents obtained through fraudulent administrative networks.
During an immediate terminal interrogation conducted by senior border safety officials, Haji reportedly acknowledged that he was in physical possession of a Kenyan passport. However, the deputy prime minister flatly refused to hand over the document to the investigating immigration officers, declaring that he would only surrender the travel credentials under the direct instruction of a formal court of law.
Following his refusal to comply with the seizure demand, border authorities officially denied the Somali statesman entry into the country. Haji was escorted to the airport’s Terminal 2 VIP lounge, where he was detained overnight while immigration departments arranged his immediate removal from Kenyan soil. He was subsequently placed onto a Daallo Airlines return flight bound for Mogadishu, which departed the tarmac with no further security incidents reported.
A senior executive within Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs subsequently confirmed the execution of the deportation order, though neither the Kenyan nor the Somali federal cabinets have released an official public statement addressing the immigration clash. The rare public expulsion of a sitting top-tier foreign diplomat arrives during a week of heightened state interactions, occurring just as Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud concluded a separate diplomatic mission in Kenya for high-level bilateral talks with President William Ruto.
The sudden enforcement action highlights a broader policy shift by the Kenyan government, which has drastically intensified its domestic biometric and document monitoring systems to combat corruption networks fabricating national identity papers for foreign nationals. While the unexpected border dispute threatens to test the fragile diplomatic ties between the two East African neighbors, both capitals continue to rely heavily on shared regional security frameworks, including coordinated military initiatives against Al-Shabaab insurgents in the Horn of Africa.
