Witnesses Defend Governor Abdullahi's Victory

On Thursday, witnesses who testified in Ahmed Abdullahi's favor in a petition contesting his election victory told the court that the Wajir elections were free, fair, and transparent. Yahya Dahiye and Ahmed Hussein denied allegations that election fraud marred the Wajir governor's race by stating that the voting was strictly legal. Dahiye, the governor's chief agent, claimed that voting took place at each of the six polling places and that he never heard any negative feedback from any of the polling places.

"I equally affirm that the voting process at the polls went off without a hitch. When asked a question by Governor Abdullahi's attorney Omwanza Ombati, Dahiye responded, "The Tallying in the Constituency Tallying Centre was equally above-board. The governor's chief of staff, Dahiye, also stated that the petitioner's accusations were false and intended to mislead the court.

Hussein noted that the petitioner was "poor educated, judgmentally biased, statistically dishonest, and mathematically illogical" in his petition. Hussein was the chief agent in the Wajir West constituency, which is the home district of governor Ahmed Abdullahi. He asserted that it is untrue that the KIEMS kits were not utilized to identify voters in the Wajir West seat and that the KIEMS kits were in fact used to do so.

Hussein said that the IEBC had backup methods to identify voters in cases where the voters' fingerprints could not be read. He added: “No voter was disenfranchised on account of defective KIEMS Kits. The IEBC established backup methods to identify voters in cases where the voters' biometrics could not be read. Following a lawsuit filed by Dr. Hassan Mohamed Adam, who is contesting the governor's victory, the pair appeared in court as witnesses for Governor Abdulahi.

Adam argues in his appeal that the election was tainted by vote-rigging, inflated voter turnout, irregular and illegal assisted voting, and the unlawful eviction of his agents from a number of polling places in the Wajir East and Wajir West seats. These are crazy assertions, according to Adam, that the election results were inflated, padded, or even that ballot boxes had been stuffed.

"The petitioner's assertions are false, implausible, and unjustified, as the voters declared by the IEBC are precise and verifiable," he continued. Adam specifically mentioned the Wajir West constituency and claimed that it had a "disproportionately greater" turnout than the other constituencies. He asserts that more over 90% of the votes cast at polling places went to governor Abdullahi Jiir, and he calls the governor's entire vote total in the Constituency "suspect votes."

"His allegations that the turnout in Wajir West was low are self-serving and a misrepresentation of the facts. "Governor Ahmed Abdullahi Jiir's base and home district is Wajir West, thus it was anticipated that the voting group would coalesce behind him," he stated. He claims that Adam has made no accusations of malfeasance about the voting in the Governor Abdullahi-beating Tarbaj Constituency stronghold.

"He (Adam) won more than 90% of the votes cast at a few polling places thought to be his "strongholds" in the rural districts of Wajir East constituency and in Tarbaj Constituency, but he has a problem with Wajir West voter turnout, which was 74.49 percent," claimed Dahiye. Regarding the clan dynamics, he testified that out of the 12 Degodia sub-clans, 11 had endorsed Governor Ahmed Abdullahi Jiir without dissent, and only the Fai sub-clan, to which the petitioner belonged, was undecided because 4 of them were running for governor (Ugas Mohamed, Mohamed Elmi, Dr Hassan Adan, and Mohamed Abdi Mohamud).

In addition, he assured the court that Governor Ahmed Abdullahi Jiir enjoyed the support of all Wajir County citizens, regardless of their membership in a particular clan.