President Uhuru Opposes Raila's Request to Access IEBC Servers

President Uhuru Kenyatta through his lawyers Fred Ngatia and AhamedNassir Abdullahi has opposed Raila's attempts to use the court to get orders to access electoral commissions's servers.

The two accuses Raila of trying to fish for evidence to enable him build his petition by demanding a trove of documents and data from IEBC.

Ngatia and Abdullahi argued that by demanding for the Forms 34A and 34B and the logs from servers as well as the gadgets, Raila was making an application he had not pleaded in his petition.

"It is trite law and the practice that a party cannot depart from its pleadings.

"What Nasa is essentially doing is demanding for evidence. They are saying that if we don’t get this evidence, our case will collapse," Mr Abdullahi said.

The Supreme Court judges will give a verdict on Sunday as to whether Nasa is to be allowed to access the servers, with Chief Justice David Maraga saying they were in the dark regarding how long it would take to analyse the form and server logs.

"What you, all the counsel, are not telling us is how long it would take.

"You are telling us a few hours, the others are saying three weeks," he told Mr James Orengo, Mr Odinga's lawyer during a pre-trial hearing on Saturday night.

Abdullahi said the parties in the case find themselves in the same situation they were in, four and half years ago, when Odinga filed a similar petition challenging Kenyatta’s win in 2013, where Raila wanted court help him obtain key information to reinforce his case.

"It is not a function of this court to help a party build its case," Mr Abdullahi said, adding that there is no provision in law that can compel a public body to provide information to assist Nasa build its case.

Abdullahi told the court that, Safran Morpho, the firm that hosted IEBC’s servers, “is not a Mickey Mouse company” and it would take time to get the logs demanded by Nasa.

Ngatia in the other hand wondered why Raila was seeking the forms, when all presidential candidates were entitled to have agents at every polling station.

"We oppose the application in its entirety," he said.