OPINION: Was Roselyn Akombe sincere in her resignation?

Dr Roselyn Akombe, a commissioner at the IEBC, resigned from the Commission while on an official trip to Dubai to oversee the printing presidential ballot papers for the repeat Presidential elections. In her resignation letter, Dr Akombe cited a number of issues among them her personal security, unpreparedness of the IEBC and the political impasse in the country which she says jeopardizes IEBC’s ability to hold free, fair and credible elections. While many may take this decision as a surprise, it is in fact, not news. Dr Akombe herself revealed in her statement that she has grappled with the decision to quit the commission for ‘many months’. But was this decision purely informed by the so-called frustrations of doing her work or are other issues at play here?

Granted that she may have moved her family to the US for safety reasons but while this should have made her concentrate on her work without fear of reprisals on her family, it appears to have increased her resolve to leave the country; she had nothing left to lose since even her family is not in Kenya. And who knows, maybe her newfound exile status might evoke sympathy from US authorities to also grant citizenship to her family members if they so wish?