Former Foreign Affairs Minister of Nigeria, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi has alleged that the incumbent President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta may have tried to soil the victory of his Deputy, William Ruto in the just concluded presidential election.
Relationship between President Kenyatta and Ruto, now Kenya’s President-elect had since soured, several months before the presidential election.
Akinyemi who gave his take on the Kenyan election outcome on an Arise TV programme, monitored by The New Diplomat, Tuesday said, Kenyatta allegedly planted four commissioners in the Independent Electoral and Border Commission (IEBC), with the aim of frustrating Ruto.
According to him, the four commissioners who rejected the official results of the election were in one way or the other, appointed by President Kenyatta.
It would be recalled that Deputy Chairperson of the IEBC, Juliana Cherera, alongside three other commissioners rejected the results of the Kenyan presidential election just before it was announced on Monday.
Four out of the seven electoral commissioners disowned the election results, terming it as “opaque”.
“We are not able to take ownership of the results that will be announced,” said the deputy chair of the electoral commission, Juliana Cherera.
However, IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati went on to declare Deputy President William Ruto as the winner of the keenly contested race.
Ruto was declared to have won 50.5% of the vote, beating the longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga and narrowly avoiding a run-off.
Reacting to certain speculations that Kenyatta aided the victory of his deputy, Akinyemi in his submission described it as untrue, saying Ruto won by tapping into the power of the streets.
According to the seasoned retired Nigerian Diplomat, the victory indicates that indeed power belongs to the people.
Akiyemi stated, “There have been this speculation that actually Uhuru Kenyatta with his foxiness might have arranged this cliff hanging (over the) electoral victory of Ruto. I will say this, my sources in Kenya indicate that those four commissioners who challenged the official result that was announced was actually a game plan by Kenyatta to rubbish the election because they were his appointees.
“One needs to be careful about how he’s supposed to have got these four people to act the way they acted. But I draw your attention to the fact that practically all analysts who are not Kenyan, by the way said these four commissioners are going to have a hard time before the Supreme Court, because the portals were open… the electoral – whatever they call it – where those things were sign. All agents signed that form, attesting to the result and that was sent straight to the computer. And that was made available to anybody and everybody including the average Kenyan.
“So, where then did this four get this opaqueness with which they charged the chairman of the Electoral Commission. It is being suggested that actually this was part of the plan of Uhuru in order to derail Ruto. So I wouldn’t buy into this suspicion that actually Ruto’s electoral victory was arranged by Uhuru. I don’t think so. I think Grace of God on the part of William Ruto to have won this election.”
Meanwhile, The New Diplomat had reported Odinga on Tuesday vowed to pursue “all constitutional and legal options” after rejecting the outcome of last week’s election which gave victory to his rival and Deputy President Ruto.
“I do not want to fully address our strategies going forward but… we will be pursuing all constitutional and legal options available to us,” he told reporters a day after the results were announced.
Aligning himself with the four aggrieved IEBC Commissioners, Odinga, who described the outcome of the August 9 poll as “a travesty” at Tuesday’s press conference, had previously claimed to have been cheated of victory in the 2007, 2013 and 2017 presidential elections.
