Waititu, Sonko ‘unfit for office’

Embakasi MP Ferdinand Waititu and his Makadara counterpart Gideon Mbuvi are amongst 36 Kenyans the office of the ombudsman wants barred from taking part in next year’s General Election or holding any public office.

The list further includes 22 commissioners of the now defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya who were accused of mismanaging the 2007 General Election, leading to the deaths of more than 1,000 people with at least 350,000 others displaced.

They are former Chairman Samuel Kivuitu, Jeremiah Matagaro, Jack Tumwa, Anne Wambaa, Muturi Kigano, David Ndambiri and Samuel Arap Ngeny, among others.

The Commission for Administrative Justice led by lawyer Otiende Amollo also listed another 12 senior government and state cooperation officials who have been convicted for abuse of office.

They include former Permanent Secretary Sylvester Mwaliko, former Kenya Wines Agency Managing Director Francis Oyugi, former Nairobi Mayor John Ndirangu and former director of the National Aids Control Council Margaret Gachara.

Others are former Kenya Wildlife Service Director Evans Mukolwe and Mr Francis Menjo, formerly of the Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology.

“Having received the long list of more than 160 names, we sought confirmation from the judiciary whether appeals may have been preferred by any of the convicted officers on their respective cases,” he said at a news conference on Monday.

“The commission was not able to cross-check from each individual whether their convictions have been overturned on appeal. But generally, they are now ineligible to run for office for having been found to have misused or abused public office,” added Mr Amollo.

On Monday, Mr Amollo revealed that they had written to the Independent Election and Boundaries Commission asking it to take tough action.

He said their was just a recommendation, but the courts would have the final say on the matter and appealed to the IEBC to give its way forward so that those aggrieved can appeal the decision in court.

The commission’s mandate is to amongst others, investigate and inquire into allegations of maladministration, administrative injustice, incompetence, misbehaviour and take appropriate remedial action.

Mr Waititu was accused of hiring about 50 unruly youths to forcefully take a plot belonging to Nile Road Primary School in Kamulu on August 22.

He was further accused of publicly engaging in hate speech, inciting his supporters to violence against the police and Maasai community.

The commission says Mr Mbuvi was accused misbehaviour and bribery in relation to an alleged physical attack on Mr Harun Omon Okal, Parliament’s senior sergeant at arms.

“The MP was shown publicly stating that he met Mr Okal at Hotel Intercontinental where he offered him a bribe of Sh25,000 to drop the complaint,” said Mr Amollo.

Apart from mismanaging the election, Mr Amollo said the law barred anyone who had held office as a member of the IEBC from contesting for elections as an MP at any time within five years preceding the date of the election.

“We believe that this provision would equally apply to the former ECK commissioners,” he said.

But in a reaction, Mr Waititu claimed Mr Amollo had vested interests in the Nairobi senator’s seat.

He claimed the commission’s chairman’s sister was in the contest for the seat.