Woman who shares ID number with Raila found as commission addresses anomaly

dennis kibet

January 24, 2017 9:38 AM

IEBC moved swiftly to change the details of Maria Anyango on the voter register.

Raila had earlier raised the red flag complaining that his ID card number had been registered by an unknown person.

The woman who had registered to vote using during the August elections has been traced to Alego Usonga in Siaya County.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) moved swiftly to change the details of Maria Anyango on the voter register to ensure that both she and the Cord leader Raila Odinga vote in the elections.

Last week, Raila had raised the red flag complaining that his ID card number had been registered by an unknown person implicating him in a double registration process which in itself is an electoral offence.

He complained that was the same approach Jubilee used to manipulate the 2013 polls.

Raila now wants the new IEBC team led by Wafula Chebukati to clean up the voter register "that was used to rig the last elections".

“I am urging the team led by Wafula Chebukati to start by cleaning the voters register because it consists of 1.5 million dead voters," he said.

"We have sorted the matter out and Raila is now free to go and vote. It was a case of just one misplaced number that could have been caused by the ID registration team," Central Nyanza IEBC co-ordinator George Oyugi said.

Had the issue not have been discovered, Raila would have been barred from voting in the August elections in which he is seeking to vie for the Presidency under the opposition Cord coalition.

Similar incident

The incident comes a week after a similar one involving Cord co-principal Kalonzo Musyoka.

Kalonzo during a tour of Wajir County found out he had been sharing his ID number with 23-year old SalomeWanjiru.

However, Interior ministry accused Kalonzo of lying about double registration of his ID.

The ministry’s spokesperson Mwenda Njoka later said that the National Registration Bureau has no record of a person with the same number as the Wiper leader's.

The IEBC has also assured the public that voters are being identified through biometric features when registering adding that those whose identity card details will be inconsistent with captured by biometric system will not be allowed to vote.

dennis kibet