Mutua moves to Supreme Court to reclaim Machakos Governor's seat

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua, Wavinya Ndeti [Photo: Courtesy]

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua has accused the Court of Appeal of relying on unverified evidence to nullify his election.

Dr Mutua, through lawyer Wilfred Nyamu has raised 26 grounds to challenge the decision at the Supreme Court in a final bid to escape the electorate and avoid a rematch with his political nemesis Wavinya Ndeti through a by-election.

His main argument is that Appellate Court Judges William Ouko, Mohammed Warsame and Gatembu Kairu failed to consider the constitutional threshold of a valid election and ended up messing innocent voters who exercised their rights to elect him. “They made a mistake in nullifying Mutua’s election in the absence of substantive non-compliance with the Constitution. They cited unknown irregularities, which in all senses were not of much magnitude to warrant nullifying the election,” said Nyamu.

The lawyer said the judges paid undue regard to forms and procedural technicalities to subvert justice, which favoured Wavinya while refusing to protect the governor, leading to nullification of the election. “The judges had no power to re-analyse the evidence as if they were the election court.

They even contradicted themselves by admitting the appeal in the guise of providing justice but ended up arriving at an unjust decision,” said Nyamu.