Data and tools Nasa will access at IEBC

By IBRAHIM ORUKO
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The Supreme Court has granted the National Super Alliance (Nasa) restricted access to select IEBC data and equipment used to conduct August 8 General Election.

In a unanimous decision, the seven judges of the court said they had granted the petitioner orders of access because understanding how the systems work will help the court come to a fair decision.

However, the orders were limited to only aspects that will not compromise the commission’s electoral management systems.

The court further rejected another request from Mr Odinga, which would have allowed him to file another affidavit arising from the outcome of the system audit.

Reading the ruling on behalf of his colleagues, Justice Isaac Lenaola on Monday said allowing Mr Odinga to file another affidavit would introduce new evidence and further delay the hearing with only four days to the deadline of determining the petition.

However, the ruling is a big win for Nasa and Mr Odinga who has constantly insisted that technology was used to rig the election in favour of President Kenyatta.

Mr Odinga has also alleged that results from some of the results were relayed from ungazetted areas and the system was configured to give an 11 per-cent margin between him and President Kenyatta.

IT EXPERTS

He has termed President Kenyatta and his deputy as computer-generated leaders, a remark described by President Kenyatta in his affidavit as demeaning.

Giving the directives, the court said the exercise will be supervised by the registrar of the Supreme Court and the court’s appointed ICT experts.

Parties will also send their representatives to oversee the exercise which will be carried out at a venue to be decided by the registrar.

Among other things, the court ordered the commission to allow the Nasa team the all the servers at its disposal, firewalls without the passwords, the passwords, systems user types, and the commission’s ICT redundancy plan.

The court further ordered the commission to grant the Nasa team reading devices to distinguish the authenticity of the all documents they will be offered. The report of the audit must be submitted to the court by 5pm Tuesday.

The parties will thereafter be allowed to make submissions on the report.