NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 31 – “It is not a conspiracy theory.” That was Azimio Leader Raila Odinga’s opening statement in the presidential petition in which he is challenging the victory of President-Elect William Ruto.
In his submission before the seven judges of the Supreme Court hearing the matter, Odinga stated their petition is hinged on an apparent “pattern of violations” of the Constitution.
“If you look at the evidence before you, we invite you much lordship to conclude that what happened to August 9 this year and the subsequent events that followed on August 15 mark a pattern of violations against the Constitution,” Odinga lead counsel James Orengo submitted.
Odinga submitted that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) violated the Constitution by subverting the people’s will.
He likened the Commission to a tower of Babel, which had come crumbling down after failing to conduct a “free transparent and a verifiable exercise.”
He noted that the divisions that had rocked the Commission and consequently birthed two factions showed that the agency had failed to carry out its mandate as required by law.
“We have something that has never happened in this country that you have a commission that is divided right in the middle that speaks to a dysfunctional constitutional body,” Orengo said.
Odinga stated that the whole exercise leading up to the declaration of the results was a long con citing IEBC’s failure to tally and verify the results.
“Unlike many elections, there was deceit, manipulation, and all this was premeditated and made possible by the attack on the IT structure and system of the electoral commission,” Orengo said.
The former Prime Minister, the principal petitioner in the case, pleaded with the Martha Koome-led bench to consider all the evidence before them and deliver justice to the millions of electorate who voted.
Odinga, in particular, asked the court to nullify the August 9 election because the Commission had rigged it in favor of Ruto.
In his prayers, Odinga also submitted that Ruto had failed to attain the 50 percent plus one vote required by law.
IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati, on August 15, 2022, declared Ruto the President-Elect after garnering 7,176,141 (50.49 percent) votes against Odinga, who got 6,942,930 votes (48.85 percent).
