Rarieda MP Dr Otiende Amollo has revealed how his last-minute intervention saved opposition chief Raila Odinga from what he termed humiliation during and after the 2017 Supreme Court case in which he challenged President Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election.
Otiende who was speaking at Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi on Monday during the launch of the book "Kenyan Elections 2017: The Failed Quest for Electoral Justice" said the opposition contacted him to join NASA's team of legal experts in compiling evidence for the presidential petition only six days to the deadline.
"I accepted although there was very limited time for the work," he said.
"I went to the house where people were collecting evidence and I found young people working. I had never seen such volumes of evidence, but when I perused through I realised Raila would not win the case because most of the evidence was irrelevant. We had to start a fresh, four days to the deadline. Had we not done that, NASA would have miserably failed in the petition."
Otiende was among top lawyers including James Orengo, George Oraro, Ben Sihanya, Paul Mwangi, Peter Kaluma, Jackson Awele and Willis Otieno who successfully presented Raila's case at the Supreme Court when the former Langata MP petitioned Uhuru's re-election.
He said when the second petition came after the repeat poll, he knew the judges would be intimidated to rule in favour of the incumbent.