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President-elect William Ruto’s Chief of Staff Davis Chirchir has come out, in a sworn affidavit submitted at the Supreme Court, to categorically deny supervising the alleged hacking of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC)’s systems as claimed by anti-corruption crusader John Githongo.

Chirchir has also stressed that he was not involved in Ruto’s campaigns as claimed by Githongo.

“While I was not involved in the 9th Respondent’s campaigns (9th Respondent is William Ruto), I am aware that his Campaign Secretariat was used for political, technical, communications, and strategy meetings during the course of the campaign. I was not involved in the 9th Respondent’s campaigns,” Chirchir’s affidavit reads in part.

“I wish to confirm that neither I nor my staff was involved in accessing, entering or manipulating the IEBC entries. To my knowledge, there was no such tallying system which received data or images from the KIEMS kits, manipulated them, or uploaded them to the IEBC system. There was no centre referred to as “Uchaguzi Tallying”, the affidavit adds.

He however says he only knows Dennis Itumbi out of the five other mentioned supervisors who allegedly oversaw the hacking of IEBC’s systems.

“I wish to state that I do not know any of these listed individuals other than Dennis Itumbi, who I
have had interactions with over the years. He and I did not work together in any capacity in relation to the Presidential Campaign either pre-election, on the election date and/or during the tallying process,” his affidavit reads in part.

Githongo’s affidavit

In a 22-page affidavit supporting the petition lodged by Azimio – One Kenya coalition presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua on Monday, August 22, the CEO of Inuka Kenya Ni Sisi organisation alleges that Kenya Kwanza stole Raila’s votes.

Githongo, who was part of a group of election observers in the polls, claimed he learnt of the electoral fraud from a young man who participated in the activities.

Apparently, the young man was introduced to Githongo by a colleague at the Batian Hotel Suites at Argwings Kodhek Road in Nairobi on August 18, nine days after the polls.

Githongo claimed that the 56-man team had a total of 10 supervisors and operated from Karen, Nairobi.

According to Githongo, the said supervisors included Chirchir, Ruto’s Digital Strategist Dennis Itumbi, one Kibyegon, Morris Mutegi, Baby Serge and Jackson Kandi.

“The team was indoctrinated on the phrase ‘freedom is coming’ and that they needed to be freed from dynasties; who in this case included the Petitioner,” he adds.

The team allegedly had access to the back end of the IEBC server ‘through an arrangement between the 1st and 2nd Respondents, officials of the 1st Respondent’s ICT department together with Smartmatic’, the company that won the tender to provide election technology in the just concluded general election.

“The interface dubbed ‘Uchaguzi 2022’ was created to receive data directly from the KIEMS Kits before the same could thereafter be sent to the IEBC server,” Githongo claims.

The alleged whistleblower is said to have confessed to Githongo in an interview captured on tape how the team manipulated Form 34As by increasing Ruto’s votes in his strongholds.

In Raila’s strongholds, the team would allegedly take away votes from the ODM party leader and add to Ruto ‘without necessarily touching the total number of valid votes cast, which would remain the same.’