NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 13 – Former Commissioner at the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) Professor Joseph Gitile Naituli was Tuesday tasked to explain why he sought authority from a senior public officer before arresting a senior politician during his tenure at the agency.<\/b><\/p>\n
A selection panel for the appointment of commissioners of the electoral agency were referring to a 2016 incident when the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, during a rally cautioned the local Maasai community in Narok against any attempts for them to dispose off their ancestral land.<\/p>\n
Gitile, appearing before the selection panel, noted that upon conducting an investigation on Odinga, he later sought advice from a government official who warned against the move to arrest him.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes you need to be careful, you could create a bigger problem than what you are trying to solve. When we say independent, we don\u2019t mean a case where you cannot seek counsel, but when you need to make a critical decision, you need to seek counsel,” he told the panel.<\/p>\n
While responding to concerns that he had breached the independence of the commission, Gitile told the seven-member panel that he exercised caution then in order to avert a potentially bigger problem.<\/p>\n
He, however, clarified that the specific case did not rip him off his independence and that if appointed as a Commissioner of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), he is capable of making independent decisions without external influence or favor.<\/p>\n
“I have a serious backbone,\u201d Gitile said while he acknowledged the requirement that commissioners should be independent when exercising mandate.<\/p>\n
The former NCIC Commissioner was the third candidate to face the panel on the fifth day of the interviews.<\/p>\n
Others were National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) board member Irene Cherop and former EACC Vice Chairperson Irene Keino.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 13 – Former Commissioner at the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) Professor Joseph Gitile Naituli was Tuesday tasked to explain why he sought authority from a senior public officer before arresting a senior politician during his tenure at the agency. A selection panel for the appointment of commissioners of the electoral […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14203,"featured_media":631628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1760,26],"tags":[1981],"coauthors":[1973],"class_list":["post-631615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kenya","category-politics","category-top-stories","tag-featured"],"yoast_head":"\n