City Lawyer Ahmednasir has sensationally claimed that he lobbied for former Chief Justice David Maraga to be a judge in 2004.
In an affidavit filed by Ahmednasir in a defamation case filed by Maraga, the lawyer says Maraga has a history of soliciting favours including lobbying for the judge position.
The lawyer says when he was first elected Chairman of LSK in 2003, he together with other council members, made a visit to Nakuru when the radical surgery was at its peak.
“Maraga was one of the senior lawyers practising in Nakuru and welcomed us, following his strong solicitation and constant lobbying we included him in a list of 35 lawyers and was appointed judge in 2004,” the affidavit.
According to the affidavit, when he was a commissioner at JSC at one time, Maraga called him in the middle of the night following his vetting crying loudly begging him to save his job.
“I remember Maraga was literally shouting please help me, my brother, my career is over, I am finished.. the former CJ begged me to lobby commissioner Abdullahi,” Ahmednasir claims.
THANKFUL MEAL OF UGALI
Ahmednasir further claims he ate Ugali and chicken at Maraga's home in Karen after he lobbied for him to get the position of Court of Appeal judge.
“After the plaintiff (Maraga) was appointed he made lunch for me and another commissioner and served them a meal of chicken, ugali and sukuma at his home in Karen,” he claims.
Ahmednasir says Maraga had applied for a promotion to the appellate court and they met when he (Ahmednasir ) was with his wife and the former CJ pleaded with him to look into his application favourably.
Maraga sued Ahmednasir following a series of tweets he made on alleged corruption at the Supreme Court.
One of the tweets read, “CJ Maraga retires today and despite my constant and very public needling has refused to shed light on the senior judge of the Supreme Court who took Sh220 million from one party and a larger sum from the other side, Maraga tenure in Supreme Court was defined by grand corruption.”
In his response, Ahmednasir further claims that Maraga cannot file a suit of defamation on a tweet that criticises and ridicules him for his failures or conduct while he was still in public office.
“The tweet subject of these proceedings touched on Maraga's official capacity as Chief Justice which position he ceases to hold and not in his private sphere as an individual,” he argues.
THIN-SKINNED
He argues that being a private citizen, Maraga cannot maintain a complaint relating to his previous public office.
Ahmednasir has also accused the former CJ of being thin-skinned and having a history of being haunted by allegations of corruption during his career in the Judiciary.
“He is continuously overly sensitive to fair comments and innocent criticism about him as a judge in particular and the judiciary in general. That’s why he overacted to an innocent and simple tweet posted by me,” he said.
The lawyer says he has a long illustrious history of fighting corruption in the Judiciary adding that the said tweet was not malicious at all and was in line with many tweets he had posted on the said issue.
Edited by D Tarus
