Raila tried to talk me out of facing Uhuru, says Ekuru Aukot

The Thirdway Alliance leader Dr Ekuru Aukot has claimed Nasa leaders - Raila Odinga, his deputy Kalonzo Musyoka and Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang’ula, frantically tried to persuade him not to offer his candidature in the fresh elections.

Dr Aukot had participated in the nullified election coming a distant fifth with 27,400 votes behind Joseph Nyagah (38029) and Abduba Dida (38,004) votes compared to Kenyatta’s 8.2 million votes and Mr Odinga’s 6.8 million.

Mr Odinga, then the Nasa presidential candidate, boycotted the fresh election over claims that the electoral commission chaired by Mr Wafula Chebukati was not competent to oversee the process.

Sensing that President Kenyatta was determined to have the election proceed with Dr Aukot as seemingly the only opposition to the president, the Nasa leaders reached out to Aukot.

“Mr Odinga lobbied me not to participate in the election under the understanding that if I boycotted like he had done, it would cause a constitutional crisis because, according to him, Mr Kenyatta would not have competed against himself,” Mr Aukot said.

LUNCH MEETING

“After our first meeting, Mr Odinga would call me again. We went on a lunch meeting but I told him that the so-called abandonment will only give President Kenyatta a direct win without a contest,” he said of Mr Odinga, whom he describes as one of his best friends despite holding divergent political ideologies.

“He is my friend. I go to his house and occasionally we meet for a drink.”

According to Dr Aukot, Mr Musyoka and Mr Wetang’ula also called and, well aware they are his seniors in the legal fraternity, he accepted to meet them.

They told him to withdraw the petition he had filed at the High Court challenging the decision of the IEBC to block him from the race so as to deny President Kenyatta the much-needed legitimacy.

This came after the IEBC had decided to gazette President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga as the only candidates, leaving out the eight others who contested in the nullified poll.

SUPREME COURT JUDGMENT

The IEBC move was guided by the 2013 Supreme Court judgment that in case an election is cancelled, only the person whose victory is affected and the runner-up be the ones to contest.

“But I explained to them that if Uhuru fails to get a challenger, he would be declared the winner as it happened to Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung’wah, among others. There was a precedent but these people thought that they were going to pocket and control me,” Dr Aukot said.

He said that his decision to challenge the legality of the IEBC decision was to protect the Constitution and not about his individual interests.

“I felt that my political rights were protected by article 138 of the Constitution. I am my own man and I don’t even support what Jubilee is doing because they have officialised the theft of public funds,” he said in reference to the rampant corruption in government.

REPEAT ELECTION

He denied claims that he had been bribed by the Jubilee leadership to participate in the repeat election in order to give it legitimacy.

“It was stupid and mediocre for some people to imagine that I had been given money to remain in the race. They even said that it is my wife who went to collect the money but it is all stupid. It is the work of political conmen,” he said.

He went on: “I confronted Mr Odinga about the comments he had made about my wife but he denied it.”

He also said: “CJ Maraga chickened out from issuing an advisory opinion on what he exactly meant on declaring the election null and void.”

But as fate would have it, High Court Judge John Mativo ordered the IEBC to gazette all the candidates, who had participated in the nullified election for the fresh elections.