Why corrupt IEBC officers will make a kill during elections

 Ballot boxes being carried to a polling station during party primaries. A politician with Sh1.5 billion can bribe 150 election bosses evenly spread across half of our forty seven counties

During the recent chaotic party nominations, some constituency returning officers announced sham poll outcomes and promptly vanished into thin air.

Something more sinister happened in 2007 with elections boss Samuel Kivuitu looking so pitiable at KICC as he waited in vain for results from returning officers who had all but disappeared and, in his words, switched off their phones.

It is for these reason that the much talked about Appeal Court ruling of June 23 declaring that Presidential results announced by the Constituency Returning Officer (CRO) will be final and not subject to alteration in Nairobi should concern all those who aspire for a clean and credible election.

It was not difficult to miss the grunts of glee emanating from the NASA end of the electoral boxing ring. But at the end, was the Friday ruling worth celebrating? The general argument by NASA politicians and the media is that this is indeed a significant step towards eradicating rigging.

From where I sit however, methinks this ruling instead opens the doors wider for rig-masters to perfect their trade.

Allow me to briefly paint a doomsday scenario. In my reading of ancient, Biblical and recent history, I have reluctantly and grudgingly come to two conclusions.

First, is the grudging acceptance of the old adage that ‘every human being has a price’ Secondly, finding a human being whose ethos match the standards of Caesar’s wife is like searching for a virgin on Koinange Street on a month end night.

As it is therefore, all a free-spending politician needs is to put aside 1.5 billion shillings then identify at least 150 CROs evenly spread across half of our forty-seven counties and sort them out accordingly. Thereafter, the announcements will come thick and fast in his favour after which the CROs will promptly retire in the Maldives.

The only upside of the Friday ruling for the IEBC Chair is that from Friday night, he can enjoy elemental sleep in the safety of the fact that the ruling clearly frees him from any form of legal culpability whatsoever for botched presidential poll results. For Chebukati, the sweetness of the Friday ruling is that none of the aggrieved presidential candidates will have any beef with him.

Instead, what the ruling does is to declare that any presidential candidate who intends to go to court must then separately sue each one of the CROs that he deems to have erred in terminating his presidential bid. For the decidedly mischievous CROs amongst the 290, here is the plan: Take the 100 Million, fly out your family (including your Grandmother) to a country whose name we can’t even pronounce here in Kenya (like Kyrgystan or Tajikistan) late in July. For yourself, buy a ticket dated August 8, 2017 for a midnight flight to the remotest corner of Timbuktu or East Timor where cell-phones do not function.

Prepared thus, you may then pre-type a signed final declaration of presidential result in favour of your benefactor which you shall boldly announce in front of cameras by 8pm on August 8.

Thereafter, feign diarrhoea and rush out to the waiting getaway Toyota Probox that you had hired from the miraa drivers of the Meru-Nkubu road.

Any form of legal action will be rendered nugatory because you cannot be found (and hence a mistrial) and because your man will be the President (and hence a relative degree of insulation).

The writer teaches sociology at the University of Nairobi.