Akombe ruffles feathers at IEBC with Msando’s death comments

Noah Cheploen @cheploennoah

The gruesome killing of former Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) ICT manager Chris Msando has come back to haunt the electoral body with former commissioner Roselyn Akombe threatening to spill the beans.

Exactly three years later, the spirit of the former IEBC official who was murdered in 2017 shortly after promising Kenyans that “no dead voters will resurrect under my watch”, is still hovering in the air with Akombe now turning the heat on former colleagues.

Akombe, who fled to the US in 2017, set the internet aflame four days ago when she accused senior officials in the IEBC of having had a hand in Msando’s death, saying: “Painful that your own colleagues led you to the slaughter house,” she said in a tweet.

“Like Judas, they sold you for thirty-cents. We will find justice for you, no matter how long it takes,” she vowed, calling for an independent judicial inquest to investigate Msando’s death which remains unresolved to date.

She later posted this quote on her page: “History will not be kind to us. So you have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate, to speak up, speak out and get in good trouble. You can do it.

You must do it. Not just for yourselves but for generations unborn.” “We lose our fear, they lose their power,” she said quoting American human rights activist  John Lewis who died last month.

Her posts appeared to have rubbed her former IEBC chief executive Ezra Chiloba the wrong way.

Yesterday morning, Akombe posted a screenshot of an email she purportedly received from Chiloba.

“Do not attempt to re-write history. Our silence is not your license,” Chiloba allegedly wrote to her in a terse email.

“On 29 July, I said I will testify at an independent judicial inquest into the murder of my colleague Chris… I received this email from @EzraCHILOBA, former CEO @IEBCKenya, it confirms my call for an inquiry,” she said.

“Kenyans deserve the truth. I owe it to you,” she tweeted. Her tweets elicited a lot of interest from her followers including former Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Martha Karua and Law Society of Kenya President Nelson Havi.

US-based law don Prof Makau Mutua also joined the fray as well as many other netizens who accused Chiloba of cover up. 

“Mr Chiloba’s threatening email could be understood by the law as consciousness of guilt,” said Mutua.

“Why the mafiosi-like intimidation? You must continue to speak truth to power until the killers of Msando are held to account. Kenyans of good conscience salute you,” he wrote.

Shocking murder

But Chiloba distanced himself from the email describing it as an act of forgery.

“People are just trending Ezra Chiloba for no apparent reason, and are you sure it’s Roselyn Akombe who forged this? Interesting country,” he tweeted in response.

Havi was forced to defend his tweet with some accusing him of dismissing Akombe’s call for an inquest, saying: “We haven’t dismissed Dr Roselyn Akombe.

Her decision to speak on this murder is a bold step towards its resolution.”

“We, however, doubt the commitment of the Government of Kenya in unraveling the murder,” he said echoing the call by ODM leader Raila Odinga and his ANC counterpart Musalia Mudavadi for the FBI to lead the probe into the murder that shook the country in 2017.

Msando’s body was found alongside that of a young woman in a thicket at Muguga Forest in Kikuyu.

His murder almost derailed the presidential election with his family and opposition accusing the government of assassinating him.

IEBC chair Wafula Chebukati has on several occasions asked those with relevant information to present it to the investigating agencies.

Chiloba was hounded out of office following a protracted fight with Chebukati.

“We all want to see justice for the family of Msando and for Msando. We have said this right from the beginning,” he was quoted by a section of the media saying.