Ruto's Lawyer Fred Ngatia: Raila Wants to Throw the Country into a Constitutional Crisis

President-elect William Ruto has urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the prayers sought by Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga and other petitioners in the consolidated presidential election petition seeking to overturn his victory.

Through Senior Counsel Fred Ngatia, Ruto submitted that the petition seeks to create what he termed as a constitutional crisis and pleaded with the judges to issue orders and reliefs that are stable and final to avoid a crisis in the country.

He cited a prayer by Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua to have IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati barred from overseeing a repeat presidential election should the apex court nullify Ruto’s victory.

“The orders sought in the primary petition are not only contradictory, but they would also take this country into a constitutional crisis. We now have the incumbent President in office with limitations in Article 134. The incumbent cannot even appoint anybody to take over from any of the public officers being vilified before you,” Ngatia said.

“If for example and I say for example guardedly this honorably Court were to even countenance anything other than stability and finality, then a constitutional crisis would be triggered because the first petitioner has repeatedly said he will not participate in an election under the chairmanship of IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati.”

At the same time, Ngatia defended Ruto’s victory, saying it was a culmination of a fair, free, verifiable and constitutional process where Kenyans expressed their will.

“The people of Kenya did express their sovereign will and what is now under inquiry is whether that sovereign will by 14 million Kenyans will stand unhindered or whether this court will consider any other remedy other than upholding the sovereign will of the voters,” said Ngatia.

He urged the seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition, saying it lacked merit and does not meet the standards of an election petition.

He dismissed claims by the petitioners that Forms 34A were intercepted, edited, and uploaded into the IEBC system, challenging them to show one Form 34A from the portal that differs from the hard copy.

“Show us a ballot box that people from outer space came and voted into staffed into it and then all this hijacking in mid-air took place? There is no such evidence because that is the work of fiction.  Not just conspiracy but work of fiction,” said Ngatia.