Tape is a plot to fix me, IEBC chief now claims

Suspended Electoral Commission boss James Oswago Monday disowned a secret recording of a senior election official, claiming it was meant to victimise him for the poll’s shortcomings.

Mr Oswago, in a statement sent to media houses, questioned the timing and the intention of the recording which sought to depict him as the IEBC official who was speaking to an ODM politician in Dholuo.

He argued that the recording, which has triggered heated exchanges across the political divide, involved many people but deliberate attempts were made by those behind its distribution to pin it on him.

“I have had occasion to watch the series of the Jicho Pevu (KTN/The Standard) and also coverage of the same in the Sunday Nation and wish to deny any part of that production to the extent that it is attributed to me.

I particularly find as offensive the phone conversations allegedly recorded from my conversation with an unnamed senior public figure,” he said in a statement released by the IEBC last evening.

Mr Oswago, who is facing a court case in relation to the failure of electronic gadgets during the last elections, said he accepted to be interviewed by journalists from the two media houses after notifying IEBC chairperson Isaack Hassan.

Even though he did not recognise the two voices on the secret recording, he said the journalists insisted it was his voice.

“The recording lasting about 60 minutes was largely in Dholuo. I could not recognise the two voices of the respondents. I was duly informed that one was, or sounded like mine,” he said.

From his understanding, he said the video recording was in deep Luo language which could “defy translation” since those on record appeared “very intimate acquaintances.”

Giving examples, he said the word “fuambo” meant journalists while in the stories by the two media houses, they claimed it referred to the intelligence services which in Luo he argued is referred to as “kachero.”

“Then the recording refers to JA-UGENYA, which means a man who hails from Ugenya, a location or constituency in Nyanza.

There are hundreds of thousands of men /women with that ancestry. How do you get to know which one of this is a prominent politician? And if so why protect his identity?” he poses.

Mr Oswago argues that the recording must have been done for over one month, taking place during the period before the elections to the end of the presidential petitions which was filed by Cord presidential candidate Raila Odinga against the victory of Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta.

Yet, he argues, the media houses presented it as one continuous conversation.

“Names are dropped clearly out of context to serve the demands for sensationalism and to nourish innuendo.

The worst travesty is to insist that one correspondent is a senior ODM politician. Neither the Standard nor the Nation has the wherewithal or interest to do such recording,” he states.

He accused the two media houses of being used by a senior ODM politician who he claims has accused him of betraying the Luo community. He questions the failure by the journalists to disclose the name of the politician involved.

“If this was a senior ODM official why didn’t he or (has hasn’t he) prevailed or restrained his equally senior colleagues from incessant vile insults directed at me from March 2013 to date?

I have suffered calumny and extreme prejudice from this senior cast precisely because of the perception that I betrayed a tribe or party,” he says.

Then adds: “If this was a senior ODM politician purportedly working in the public interest, why not disclose their identity?”

Mr Oswago submits that three people were involved in the recording but their identities has been concealed.

He says one of them is called Joseph while the two are said to be senior IEBC officials.

“These have names and voices totally expunged unlike the parts attributed to James Oswago whose alleged recording is done without restraint, common sense or journalistic ethics.

‘‘I sincerely believe that this is a conspiracy to harm or injure my person or career,” he states.

Even though the electronic gadgets failed at some point, he argues that IEBC conducted the elections openly and transparently without favouring any of the presidential candidates in the race as has been widely claimed.

“I believe with all my heart that there was NO conspiracy at whatever level within the Commission to confer or deny advantage to any presidential candidate.

If there was any such conspiracy I was not aware and never became part of it,” he says.