Former journalist and corruption whistleblower, John Mark Githongo, has filed another affidavit at the Supreme Court explaining that the logs he gave in his first affidavit were demo screenshots of how hackers can access the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) systems and not actual logs.
The former journalist refuted claims that the logs had originated from him and instead affirmed that he retrieved them from his source.
He added that his source was one of the 56 hackers who were allegedly hired by the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) proponents to manipulate Forms 34A before they were uploaded into the IEBC system.
“The logs annexed to my affidavit dated August 21, 2022, are the exact logs given to me by the young man referred to in my affidavit and, therefore, the logs did not originate from me or the petitioner," read part of his second affidavit.
According to Githongo, his statement on the hacking of the IEBC system was backed up by commissioner Justus Nyang'aya's affidavit.
The commissioner claimed that a foreigner was allegedly granted access to the IEBC servers by the Chairman, Wafula Chebukati, to manipulate the results. Nyang'aya stated that the foreigner's logs could be traced from the time he accessed the server to the time he exited.
Githongo further, highlighted that his initial affidavit revealed manipulation of Forms 34A in favour of a particular candidate.
The affidavit came as a response to the submissions filed by UDA's digital strategist, Dennis Itumbi, Chief of Staff in the Office of the Deputy President, Davis Chirchir, data analyst Eric Mulei, UDA's lead IT expert, Raymond Kiprotich Bett, and executive chairman of a Nairobi-based audit firm, Ashif Kassam.
The affidavits poked holes into Githongo's screenshots, terming them as false. For instance, data analyst Mulei noted that the logs were falsified in order to prove a certain narrative.
In his earlier affidavit, Githongo indicated that a team of ten supervisors managed and delegated tasks to 46 other hackers who manipulated the data in the IEBC portal.
"Their task was to receive the Forms 34A from the KIEMS Kits which were sent to their server/platform which he termed as Uchaguzi Tallying. After receiving the said data, they would edit the necessary form 34A’s according to the instructions given to them by their leaders and thereafter upload the said edited Form 34A’s to the IEBC portal," part of Githongo's initial affidavit read.
