It has now emerged that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairperson, Wafula Chebukati, arrived at the decision to seek the suspension of three ICT officers after an attempt to lobby other commissioners to authorize the suspension of Chief Executive Ezra Chiloba failed.
According to a report in The Nation, a high-profile meeting was held on Monday where the commission discussed Mr Chiloba's responses to the original leaked memo that questioned his handling of the August 8th election.
Mr Chebukati had apparently found the Chief Executive's answers to the tough questions inadequate and tabled a proposal to have the commission greenlight Chiloba's suspension.
The commissioners were holed up in the meeting for hours but were unable to okay Chiloba's suspension. The report alleges that this is due to protection Mr Chiloba allegedly enjoys from senior Government officials.
The memo that leaked on Tuesday sees Mr Chebukati direct Chiloba to authorize the suspension of three ICT officials; ICT director James Muhati, ICT coordinator Paul Mugo and ICT officer Boniface Wamae.
Chebukati called out the three for acquiring rights to delete files from the electoral body's servers, as well as other additional privileges to the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server under the National Returning Officer's (Chebukati) account.
Mr Chebukati also stated: “The ICT security framework and security measures deployed in the General Election failed to eliminate the risk of external interference as users with foreign IP address could log onto the commission’s system and perform functions before, during and after the elections.”
The second leaked memo emerged on the day Mr Chebukati failed to attend a scheduled meeting with religious leaders led by Bishop Aggrey Mukilima of the Friends Church.
The clerics were there to present him with a petition urging Mr Chebukati to identify and purge officials who mishandled the August 8th election, and to engage all stakeholders ahead of the next election.
In their list of 'Irreducible Minimums' for there to be a fresh election, the National Super Alliance (NASA) had also demanded that the three ICT officials, among others, be removed.
