Roselyn Akombe Drops another 'Bombshell' on the Mess at IEBC

Hours after tendering her resignation from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), former commissioner Roselyn Akombe has thrown another 'bombshell' on the mess dogging commission.

Speaking during an interview with KTN on phone on Wednesday from New York, Akombe said that the IEBC secretariat has been frustrating the commission's bid to hold a credible election.

Akombe said that overhauling the secretariat that is headed by IEBC CEO Ezra Chiloba was the sole solution to the problems facing the commission. “We have a secretariat that has decided to take this country to hell. Until we fix this issue that has made part of the secretariat to form a coalition with some of the commissioners and hold the chairman captive, then we will not be running the election in one month or three months,” Akombe said.

She noted that chairperson Wafula Chebukati had been held hostage by a section of commissioners using their numerical advantage to overrule the chairman's decisions towards holding a free and fair poll, a claim that was confirmed by Chebukati in his statement on Wednesday. “As a lawyer, I cannot continue to be pushed by majority commissioners to accept legal opinions that serve partisan interests and are not grounded in the Constitution or law. This is intellectual dishonesty for which my professional training demands that I abhor,” he said at a press conference at the Bomas of Kenya.

Akombe revealed that the majority commissioners, for instance, frustrated Chebukati’s attempts to have an alternative firm another, other than the controversial Dubai-based Al Ghurair print ballots for fresh election. Akombe said: “When the chairman puts forward some proposals on what we can do better, it is the same commissioners who are saying no."