Raila tours Nairobi slums urging supporters to enlist as voters

Cord leader Raila Odinga on Monday began a campaign to mobilise supporters to register as voters, warning that stakes in the August presidential election were higher than before.

Mr Odinga said he had a formula to deal with election theft and told his supporters to play their part by registering “and leave the rest to me”.

Mr Odinga also called for efforts to find owners of more than 400,000 identity cards yet to be collected.

The opposition leader made the appeal even as Cord raised questions regarding the distribution of biometric voter registration (BVR) kits, with populous regions such as Nairobi getting fewer than the anticipated number of voters.

And Mr Odinga’s tours that began in Nairobi slums on Monday will continue to the rest of his strongholds countrywide.

“The last two elections were rigged. But let me tell you now I have a formula on how to deal with them if they attempt the old tactics,” he said.

The veteran opposition leader said Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo and his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari lost elections three times “due to rigging before they finally won”.

“Our chances of winning are high but you must do one thing; register as voters,” he said at Kibera DO’s office.

Mr Odinga was accompanied by Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero in a day-long drive that covered Mathare, Kawangware, Dandora, Kayole and Lang’ata, among other areas.

He pleaded with aspirants in the opposition to suspend campaigns and focus on voter registration.

MONITOR VOTER REGISTRATION

“These elections will be won between today and mid-February when registration ends,” Mr Odinga told crowds that turned up to listen to him.
The Cord leader took issue with some hopefuls who took advantage of his tours to campaign for themselves.

“These are not campaign rallies. It is silly for anyone to wave placards and banners when we are dealing with serious issues,” he added.

Dr Kidero said the opposition would monitor the voter registration daily.

Dagoretti North MP Simba Arati urged colleagues in Nairobi to ensure a high number of opposition supporters register as voters.

Let us not wait till the last day. We should register now. We need big numbers to emancipate the country from corruption, nepotism, negative ethnicity and arrogance by public servants,” he said.

Embakasi South MP Irshad Sumra said wards and constituencies that register high numbers in the city would be rewarded though he did not elaborate.

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Nairobi County coordinator Ruth Kulundu said allocation of BVR kits was determined by the vastness of wards and not population size.

She said populous regions in Nairobi had easier accessibility to BVR machines than vast and sparsely populated areas like northern and northeast Kenya.