Raila wants Common Wealth, UN to probe alleged electoral fraud in Kenya
Azimio la Umoja - One Kenya coalition leader Raila Odinga now wants the international community to probe allegations of alleged electoral malpractice in the August 2022 presidential election.
Speaking at Jacaranda Grounds in Nairobi on Sunday, January 29, the opposition chief asked the Common Wealth and the United Nations to deploy teams to Kenya to look into the reports within two weeks, failure to which Kenyans will take matters into their own hands.
He claimed that any other investigations including those being carried out by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) would be biased due to influence from the Executive led by President William Ruto.
"Vijana tumesema kwanza tunataka Common Wealth and the United Nations itume inspectors hapa Kenya sio Ruto la sivyo wakenya watachukua hatua yao wenyewe," Raila said while responding to calls from the youth to invade State House.
Earlier, Raila said that DCI boss Mohamed Amin can not lead investigations into claims of electoral fraud because he is an appointee of President Ruto.
"Nimeona yule anaitwa DCI anasema anataka kufanya uchunguzi. Bwana DCI wewe ni mwajiri wa bwana Ruto huwezi kufanya uchunguzi," Raila said at a church service at Jesus Teaching Ministry in Donholm moments before heading to Jacaranda Grounds.
The opposition chief said the Azimio coalition wants to know the truth about what transpired in the last general election.
He said the truth would only come out if the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) opens its servers used on August 9, 2022, for scrutiny, after an alleged dossier from an insider showed that Azimio won the poll by more than two million votes.
DCI probe
DCI boss Amin has reportedly launched a probe seeking to establish if offences of “forgery” and “falsification of documents” were committed in the documents released by the Raila team recently.
In a letter to IEBC CEO Marjan Hussein Marjan, Amin said his office has received numerous correspondence and complaints relating to the information circulating online which is attributed to the IEBC.
He said his office is seeking to investigate the forms 34B that Azimio claims are genuine results, particularly the alleged irregularities and inconsistencies in the watermarks featured in the IEBC documents.
“The directorate is investigating the validity and authenticity of the documents in question, in addition to whether offences relating to forgery and falsification of documents have been committed,” Amin said.
The alleged IEBC whistleblower claims Raila garnered 8,170,353 (57.3 per cent) votes against Ruto’s 5,915,973 or 41.66 per cent.
Raila insists that Ruto was rigged in a wider scheme involving the outgoing chairman of IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati.
He maintains that Ruto's administration is illegitimate and has vowed to lead resistance to force the government to resign.
At the same time, the opposition leader while likening Ruto's administration to the biblical tax collector Zacchaeus called on Kenyans to resist paying taxes terming them as “punitive”.
“We ask that all Kenyans demand the removal of these punitive taxes. There will be no taxation without representation,” Raila said on Sunday.
He emphasized that he would not be silenced and would continue to fight for the people.
Odinga also accused the Ruto administration of attempting to take control of major institutions in the country, claiming that recent leadership changes at parastatals were part of a scheme to loot public resources.
He cited the recent change in leadership at Kenya’s largest telco, Safaricom, as an example, where John Ngumi was replaced by Adil Arshed.
“In the last few weeks, Ruto has replaced the leadership of various parastatals with his shady characters. We know that this is meant for the looting of public resources,” Raila said.
