Former Nairobi governor Evans Kidero on Saturday suffered a major blow after an earlier ruling on the scrutiny of votes in the ongoing petition against Homa Bay governor Gladys Wanga was reviewed.
Justice Roselyne Aburili who is the presiding judge in the case reviewed her earlier ruling that had okayed the scrutiny of votes in 400 polling stations to say that the exercise will now be conducted in sampled 197 polling centres only.
The affected stations have been picked randomly from seven constituencies in the county.
Governor Wanga’s lawyers led by Charles Kanjama had vigorously opposed the scrutiny requested by Kidero’s defence team.
The move came as eight of Kidero’s witnesses took the stand to testify in a case where the former Nairobi governor is seeking to have the election of Governor Wanga overturned.
According to the election results, Wanga of the ODM party won with 244,559 against 154,182 votes by Dr Kidero who was an independent candidate.
Earlier one of Dr Kidero’s witnesses Dan Ojijo who served as the Presiding Officer at Ongeti Primary School polling station in Kochia ward testified in court against his employer saying that the election was not free and fair at that particular station.
Ojijo marked the first witness to appear before Justice Roselyne Aburili at Homa Bay High court Thursday over the case that was filed by Kidero against the win of Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga.
Ojijo claimed that rowdy youths forced him to alter election results to announce Governor Wanga as the winner at Ongeti polling station.
But he failed to explain why he did not immediately report the matter to his bosses and even to the police who were present at the polling centre.
Kanjama challenged the witness by stating that he was contradicting himself in the evidence since there was an affidavit he had sworn indicating that the counting of votes was done peacefully.
“You had earlier stated in your affidavit that the counting of votes was peaceful yet again you talk of violence in which you were threatened with a gun. Are you trying to mislead this court?” Kanjama asked.
The lawyer linked Ojijo with personal hatred against his client citing a Twitter post by the latter, who however denied having an account with the platform.
