HERE are the ‘DARK SECRETS’ of the New IEBC COMMISSIONERS Uhuru Nominated

Controversy looms in IEBC as Uhuru nominates complicit individuals commission

By Jaramba Okwama

The IEBC selection panel has been thrown into a spin following shocking emerging revelations regarding the applicants that they vetted and recommended for appointment into the new IEBC commission. The nominations have been roundly condemned — and in the strongest of terms.

President Uhuru Kenyatta nominated lawyer Wafula Chebukati for the position of IEBC Chairman including six other individuals for the positions of Commissioners. They were: Consolata Nkatha Bucha Maina, Boya Molu, Dr Roselyn K. Akombe, Ambassador Paul Kurgat, Margaret Wanjala Mwachanya, and Professor Abdi Guliye.

Parliament will now have to sift through serious integrity and conflict of interest issues involving some of the Chairman and some of the nominated Commissioners following numerous tips received against them.

The Chairperson of the IEBC selection panel Bernadette Musundi and vice chairperson Abdulghafur El-Busaidy along with members Tom Mbaluto, Peter Karanja, David Oginde, Mohan Lumba, Ogla Karani, Evans Monari and Mary Karen Kigen are accused of doing an extremely casual job in vetting the applicants and ignoring damning evidence of impropriety against some of the candidates.

*1. Wafula Chebukati – nominated for Chairman (IEBC)*

Chebukati’s law firm, Cootow Associates Advocates, has been exposed as the main conduit through which corruption proceeds were channeled to former EACC Chair Philip Kinisu’s family company, Esaki Ltd, which receive more than sh400 million in several irregular tenders awarded to him by ministry of health and ministry of devolution, including NYS.

Cootow Associates Advocates are further accused of incompetence and professional negligence that led to loss of millions of shillings of money belonging to the Nairobi City County government in a case between NCG and Salima Enterprises. Media reports indicate that Chebukati’s firm did not defend the suit, despite attending court hearings, leading the county to lose the case. Consequently, the plaintiff sought a Sh325 million compensation which NCG were forced to pay in addition to paying the cost of the suit and legal fees due to Cootow.

In that case in which Chebukati acted for Nairobi County Government, he exhibited shocking professional negligence when he failed to appear in court for key hearings and whenever he found time to attend court, he failed to defend the NCG. An internal report within the county government accused Chebukati of deliberately filing discrepant papers that eventually led to the collapse of the case and resulted in a loss of for the county government and poor market hawkers.

The internal reports at City Hall that were seen by this author were produced on the basis of official correspondence in which Chebukati’s apparent lack of committment to defend the stolen public land is highlighted. The presiding judge in the case Justice Mary Gitumbi expressed similar concerns during which time she also gave sufficient adjournment aimed at giving Chebukati sufficient time to refile his case documents in the interest of the public. Chebukati failed to take advantage for judicial goodwill to save public land.

In her final ruling, Justice Gitumbi made reference to the strange behavior of defence lawyer Chebukati and his apparent failure to defend the public land which was outrightly grabbed by unscrupulous grabbers calling themselves Salima Enterprises. The judge also extended time for the defence lawyer Chebukati to appeal the ruling within the first week but Chebukati failed to appeal. Several Nairobi county lawyers have indicated their total willingness to swear affidavits against chebukati abilities. Many narrate their frustrations in pushing chebukati to safe the public land. In fact one exclaimed, how could Chebukati have convinced the selection panel with all his known redundancy.

Members of Parliament will be critically looking at the activities of Cootow Associates Advocates in this case and other recent corruption cases and any role that Chebukati may have had in these deals. Many Kenyans have privately narrated their frustrations in appealing to Chebukati to act to save the public land. One Westlands market trader interviewed by this writer expressed shock at how an individual of Chebukati’s incompetence could have persuaded the IEBC selection panel with all his known redundancy.

The IEBC selection panel of nine eminent persons has been put on a backfoot that they allowed individual of Chebukati’s standing could go as far as being shortlisted for interview knowing they had serious integrity issues. Professional colleagues who know Chebukati from his campus days are now saying that he is a smooth legal lair who has accumulated wealth by acting quietly to defend all manner of crafts in the nation. This explains why Chebukati is a senior legal consel yet is not publicly known by ordinary Kenyans. How the selection panel did not investigate this matters thoroughly leaves a lot to be desired.

To make matters worse, conflict of interests questions are bound to be raised after details emerged regarding close relations between the families of the nominated Chairman and people managing President Uhuru Kenyatta 2017 re-election campaign.

Chebukati is said to be half brother to the disgraced Ex-EACC Chairman Philip Kinisu whom he represented in the NYS corruption scandal, and Kinisu is married to Nancy Gitau the immediate former Senior Presidential Advisor and Strategist, who was recently recalled to Head President Uhuru’s re-election campaign think-tank. Clearly a critical conflict of interest question emerges from this.

2. Connie Nkatha alias Consolata Bucha – nominated IEBC Commissioner

Additional information reaching this writter indicate that Consolata Nkatha Bucha also known as Connie Maina, ranked last by the recruitment panel, has a criminal court case in which she is accused defrauding Kshs. 280m from the Museums of Kenya and then going into exile in Australia where she changed her identity to Consolata Nkatha in a bid to conceal her real identity.

Try to google her, zero results other than links relating to this IEBC job application/selection. No serious proffessional blacks out his or her Linkedin page. She seems to have worked overtime to eliminate all her digital footprints.

Additionally, Nkatha remains a prime suspect in a murder case in the mysterious death of her husband, a man from Nyamira, Kisii. Sources say that after she allegedly murdered her husband Maina Keengwa and whose funeral she did not even attend, she eloped with the best man at her wedding – a pilot with whom she robbed his house and chased him away.

Former colleagues at KWS expressed surprise at Consolata Nkatha’s nomination alluding to her criminal past disqualifying her from holdong any public office. One of her former colleague at KWS laughed loudly wondering “how could Kenyans throw away a team of educated IEBC and hire a trainee secretary who could not even write a simple letter?” while another of her former colleague said “surely the religious leaders have been blinded by Nkatha’s witchcrafts” .

While at KWS, Nkatha’s alleged intimacy with former Director Richard Leakey is attributed to her rapid and largely unmerited promotion to SRO without any papers at all. She travelled all over the world with Leakey who was alleged to be her boyfriend and it is believed that it was during those holiday trips abroad that Nkatha met the drug barons whom she now became their conduit. Nkatha was forced to leave KWS in disgrace when a new competent Director Dr Kipngetich joined the agency. She had accumulated sufficient wealth through her drug deals but her sexual tools could no longer work for her.

While at KWS, Nkatha was involved in land robbery cases with her former deceased husband with whom they defrauded the Maasai elders to sell to them large acres of land at throw away prices only for them to resell at high prices. In the process of subdividing the parcels of land and processing the title deed, they illegally changed to acres to hectares causing the people of Kajiado and Ngong lose of large tracts of land.

Nkatha remains a prime suspect in the murder of her husband because he was questioning her drug trafficking business. One of the close friends who initially broke the news to Nkatha about her husbands death is yet to recover from the shock and pain he felt when “she laughed off the news, telling them “it serves him right”. Sources say she was not even at home most of the evenings when her husband’s funeral was planned and she finally did not even attend the funeral at Kisii. Concerned constituents from Kisii County have now petitioned legislators from Kisii region to raise this matter during the vetting stage in parliament.

When she worked at the National Museums, Nkatha is alleged to have turned into witchcraft to manipulate her bosses. Most of her colleagues have reported that she is used to take “Waganga” witches to the office from Nigeria, Congo, Tanzania and Uganda. It is therefore believed that Nkatha’s witchcraft overpowered the God of the five religious leaders who sat at the IEBC selection panel and this is why some rated her so highly.

Nkatha association with known drug dealers is also a point of deep concern. Nkatha’s academic certificates are also in doubt as she cannot specifically name her former classmates in campus. Those who know her say she started off as a secretarial trainee at the Kenya Wildlife Services and not much known of her professional background. From Australia, she responded to the vacancy announcement when she submitted her application with suspected forged papers and a revised CV which resulted to her coming back to Kenya just to attend the IEBC public interviews.

Investigations done at the university she claims to have attended in England, indicate that she registered but did not attend school. It is believed the panelists were mesmerized by her international non existing titles and certificates all of which have now been confirmed to be forgeries.

3. Boya Molu – nominated IEBC commissioner

Boya Molu, a native of Marsabit, who previously employed at Central Bank of Kenya and at the Judiciary is accused of practicing nepotism and tribalism in hiring staff who worked under his supervision. As a Human Resource practioner, Molu specialized in selling “jobs” in where he is also known to be non confidential and easily bribable.

Ordinary Kenyans are are questioning the rationale the “wise” religious leaders in that selection panel used to shortlist the candidates. Out of a total of 859 applicants, how could the selection panel give Kenyans 3 suspects with serious integrity issues yet they had resources and time to adequately investigate each individual?

Some of the people who applied for the IEBC jobs are renown people with reputable past, what createria did the selection panel use to finally nominate the weakest and most corrupt lawyer, a secretary with serious questionable background and a Junior HR “jobs seller” did the selection panel understand the magnitude of their job?

Did they consider the blood of the people of Kenya that have been regularly shed because of bungled elections? the only hope the people of Kenya have is to return to their elected leaders and plead with the Hon. Chepkonga’s Judiciary Committee to completely reject the appointment of Wanyonyi chebukati, consolata (Connie) Nkatha Bucha and Junior HR officer Boya Molu.

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