Senior counsel Fred Ngatia trolled the lawyers who represented Azimio leader Raila Odinga on September 5, after the delivery of the Supreme Court verdict on the presidential election petition.
Ngatia, who was president-elect William Samoei Ruto’s lead counsel, argued that the petitioners filed petitions like they were writing a fiction novel.
“People don't just go with allegations to court. It is one thing to have allegations in court, you know, don't over dramatize things. Don't draft an election petition like you are doing a book of science fiction.
“Do it like a lawyer, plead what you know it is right and it is just and it is well- founded in law. That should be one of the lessons that this contest has shown.
“There were many allegations but most of them were referred to as red-headed. It is not a very easy thing to say but it is what it is, it is red-headed,” stated Ngatia.
Speaking after the Supreme Court ruling, senior counsel Philip Murgor who represented Raila Odinga argued that they had overwhelming pieces of evidence which the seven-judge-bench did not consider.
“It is incredible that we lost on all nine points. In several of those cases, we had overwhelming evidence.
“The registrar's report was completely silent on the failure to open the servers which have all the answers,” lamented Murgor.
James Orengo, a senior counsel who worked with Murgor stated that he found the ruling disturbing since they had presented a document from the electoral body as one of their pieces of evidence.
“I found it odd for the justices to describe Julie Soweto’s presentation of the Form 34A as hot air, to describe it like that and it was a document coming from IEBC, I found it very disturbing,” Orengo remarked shortly after the Supreme Court verdict.
While delivering the verdict on behalf of the seven-judge bench, Chief Justice Martha Koome ruled that most of the petitions that were filed lacked the requisite evidence needed to overturn the presidential results announced by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairperson Wafula Chebukati on August 15, 2022 at the Bomas of Kenya.
Ruto who was running on an United Democratic Alliance (UDA) ticket got 7,176,141 votes (50.49% of the total votes) to trounce his main opponent Raila Odinga who garnered 6,942,930 votes (48.88% of the total votes).
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