Wajir Gubernatorial Petition

Witnesses in a case contesting the election of Wajir Governor Ahmed Abdullahi labored to show an electoral court how certain voters who cast ballots in the General Election on August 9 were not recognized by the KIEMS kits. This comes after witnesses alleged that irregularities and illegalities marred the debate between the governor and Dr. Mohamed Hassan.

Despite identifying the two wards as places where voters' integrity may have been compromised, he acknowledged during the cross-examination that he had not submitted an affidavit to back up his accusations. Omwanza Ombati, the lead attorney for Governor Abdullahi, asked, "You agree in your affidavit that the elections you participated in as a senatorial candidate were not free and fair, then why did you not submit a petition to dispute the elections for the office of Senator?"

Muhamud responded by stating that the petition has a financial impact, particularly in regards to hiring a qualified attorney to represent the petitioner. He claimed that he did not think it appropriate to lodge a petition against the senator. In 2013 and 2017, Muhamud ran for the Wajir West parliamentary seat on the Kanu ticket. He lost both times, but in both years he appealed the outcomes through election petitions. He ran for the Wajir County Senate seat in 2022 on the Jubilee Party platform, where he fared poorly, placing seventh.

Abdirahman said he had received complaints from agents in some polling stations indicating that IEBC had resorted to using the manual register after the KIEMS kits failed.Farhan Abdi, a Jubilee party chief agent echoed his sentiments, saying agents had forwarded to him timely briefs of how they were discriminated against and thrown out of the polling stations.

In order to prevent a voter from casting their ballot, as reported by the witnesses, Lawyer Omwanza wanted to know how to identify someone who is associated with a particular politician. Abdi acknowledged in court that they had never encountered a voter who had been turned away from a polling place. Even though the witnesses had also implicated the governor and his deputy in voter fraud, they had a difficult time demonstrating how the respondents were connected to the allegations.

Despite the allegations made by the petitioner and his witnesses, the IEBC is defended by a team of attorneys lead by Mahat Somane, who says that the election was free, fair, and transparent. Of the 12 Degodia sub-clans, the court was informed about the clan dynamics and that 11 of them had unequivocally approved governor Abdullahi Jiir.

The only Fai sub-clan that the petitioner Hassan Mohamed belonged to was undecided because four of them were vying for the governor's position (Ugas Mohamed, Mohamed Elmi, Dr Hassan Adan, and Mohamed Abdi Mohamud). In addition, the court was informed that Abdullahi enjoyed the support and goodwill of all Wajir County citizens, regardless of their membership in a particular clan.

Hassan Mohamed Adam of Jubilee was second with 27,224 votes, while Ahmed Mukhtar of UDA was third with 21,859 votes in the race for governor of Wajir, which was won by Abdullahi of ODM with 35,533 votes. Others were Abdullahi Ali of the UDM who received 15,486 votes, ANC's Ugas Shikh who received 8,086 votes, and Mohamed Elmi who ran as an independent and received 21,047 votes.