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The claim that Monbasa was not “in Kenya” in 1961 or 1964 has not been “correctly pointed out.” This DU talking point was based on the fact that the coastal strip was NOMINALLY (in name only) under the Sultan of Zanzibar, who had leased it to the British years earlier.

It was “not in Kenya” nominally.

De facto it “was in Kenya.” Mombasa was very much a part of the British East Africa colony, being its major port.

In the fall of 1963 the emerging independent government of Kenya signed a deal to end even the nominal suzereignty held by Zanzibar.

So by Feb. 1964 Mombasa was “in Kenya.”

Moreover, the “Coastal Province” which is the unit of government to which this registry belongs is that Coastal Strip containing Mombasa. This is not a document that would have been issued out of Nairobi. If it is genuine (and I’m not saying it is), it is a document of the government of the coastal region that had once been nominally under Zanzibar but practically under British East Africa. The rest of British East Africa was turning into Kenya during 1963 and 1964; this unit had its own identity (led by an opposition party to Kenyatta in Nairobi) but definitely wanted to go with the emerging Kenya rather than going with Zanzibar (which eventually, but some years later, believe, become Tanzania—Tangyanika, Nyasaland, Zanzibar).

Putting “Republic of Kenya” on government forms could make sense if this “Coastal Province” was intent on demonstrating its Kenyanness rather than its Zanzibarianness.

But until someone produces an authentic Coastal Province document from this era with Republic of Kenya on it, the above remains a plausible but not definitive explanation.