Akombe should be extradited and poll officials monitored

Former IEBC commissioner Roselyn Akombe addressing participants during the commission's observer briefing on the status of preparedness for 2017 fresh presidential elections at Nairobi Safari Club on October 13, 2017. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Once she had collected her travel imprest and was airborne, she felt safe enough to type her resignation statement on IEBC stationery.
  • Recently, Dr Akombe spirited her brother and his family out of Kenya through the border with Tanzania before penning a four-page memorandum to Mr Chebukati to undermine confidence in the election.
  • The moment Dr Akombe left her well-paying job at the UN to run elections, the government was onto her.

Some hell or high water, the presidential election of October 26, will go ahead — even if everyone at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission resigns or jumps ship.

Dr Roselyn Akombe, member of the commission, was sent to Dubai to perform a simple task – check that the names of Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Raila Amolo Odinga were properly spelt next to their mugshots on the presidential ballots at Al-Ghurair Printing and Publishing Inc godown.

Instead, she got onto a flight at taxpayer expense and switched aeroplanes midair, abandoning the untravelled sector of her ticket to Nairobi and hightailing it to New York.

Once she had collected her travel imprest and was airborne, she felt safe enough to type her resignation statement on IEBC stationery.

Her resignation is the kind of behaviour that should impel Kenya’s diplomatic mission in Washington DC as well as the permanent representative to the United Nations to seek her immediate extradition to face charges of treason.

WINNING ELECTION

Dr Akombe’s actions and words are calculated to restrain the President from winning the election and can therefore be classified as treason. Anyone who encompasses to the establishment of a caretaker government outside what is provided for in the Constitution by, for example, deposing the president from his position by unlawful means, or detracting from the style, honour and name of the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces, commits a high crime.

Only recently, Dr Akombe spirited her brother and his family out of Kenya through the border with Tanzania before penning a four-page memorandum to Mr Chebukati to undermine confidence in the election.

Anyone who accepts a 70 per cent pay cut to take a job at Anniversary Towers should be watched carefully, and the country’s intelligence services have not slept a wink.

The moment Dr Akombe left her well-paying job at the UN to run elections, the government was onto her.

SNEAK OUT

The last time Dr Akombe was caught trying to sneak out of the country to New York after the petition challenging the August 8, 2017 presidential election had been filed in an attempt to disown results that had been announced with her beaming like the cat that ate the canary, it was IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati who cleared her to leave.

All along, she knew that Mr Chebukati had signed a fake Form 34C, containing the results of the presidential election, at the Bomas of Kenya.

Hours after Dr Akombe’s defection to the United States this week, where she has always owed her allegiance through dual citizenship, Mr Chebukati publicly confessed that he had failed to sack anybody at the commission and was therefore unable to resign his position.

This is no coincidence. Mr Chebukati, who has isolated himself into a minority, looks like Dr Akombe’s likely accomplice.

PRESIDING OFFICERS

At a time like this, it is prudent to suspect everybody and place all commission staff and commissioners under close watch in order to monitor individuals appointed as presiding officers and returning officers lest they consider absconding from duty.

Yet, even if all the commissioners — led by the chairman — resigned, Kenya will still have an election on October 26. God is in control at the IEBC, so elections will happen.

The top-notch technology supplied by OT-Morpho is capable of delivering a free, fair and credible presidential election without the help of a human hand.

Already, the National Assembly has approved the release of Sh10 billion to be splashed on necessities to make this the freest and fairest repeat election on the continent.

The writer is a Programme Advisor, Journalists for Justice. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect those of JFJ. [email protected]