Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero bribed to have an election petition against his thrown out, a journalist.
Geoffrey Kiplagat, in an interview aired on NTV on Sunday, January 2016, claimed that he played a big role in facilitating a $2 million bribe (about KSh 200 million) from Kidero to Supreme Court Judge Philip Tonui.
“It happened at a petrol station a long Waiyaki Way… I was in the car carrying the judge,” he said.
Kiplagat explained that he had to record his 60-paragraph affidavit, which he signed on November 22, 2014, after he felt his life was in danger and wanted Kenyans to know what had happened.
In the affidavit, he claimed that a man named Kiprop Chirchir (who had arrived with Governor Evans Kidero at the petrol station) alighted from a Toyota VX and walked towards their vehicle “with a big brown briefcase” that apparently carried the money.
Chirchir then handed over the briefcase to lawyer Katwa Kigen who was driving the Mercedes Benz that Kiplagat and Justice Tunoi were in.
“After delivering the briefcase he drove the VX to a parallel position to enable the judge and the governor wave at each other and ensure it was not a hoax,” Kiplagat said.
The bribe was allegedly meant to influence Tunoi and 4 other Supreme Court judges to rule in favor of Kidero in a case that the governor filed before them challenging a lower court’s decision.
Kidero’s gubernatorial challenger in 2013 election, now Kabete MP Ferdinand Waititu had had contested the election at the High Court. He lost but successfully filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal that saw Kidero’s election nullified in May 2014.
In August the same year, Supreme Court quashed the appellate court’s decision saying that Waititu had filed his appeal well past the 30 days stipulated in the Elections Act at 72 days after the High Court’s judgement.
“For the avoidance of doubt we affirm the status of Evans Odhiambo Kidero as the duly elected governor of Nairobi county,” Tunoi read the Supreme Court’s judgement.
Both Tunoi and Kigen denied the claims by Kiplagat saying that they had never met their accuser in person.
Kidero also said he had never met any of the supreme court judges for whatever reasons and knew nothing about the claims.
After the TV interview, lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi claimed that he knew something about the alleged bribery.
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