NASA principals Raila Odinga (R) and Kalonzo Musyoka submitting the petition documents at the Supreme Court. [Photo/nation.co.ke]
The National Super Alliance (Nasa) filed its petition on Friday to contest president Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory in the recently concluded August 8 elections.
A number of lawyers were taken on board to compile the over 25,000 page petition.
According to a lawyer who spoke to Sunday Nation, the team which was led by Nasa principal Raila Odinga’s legal adviser Paul Mwangi, was forced to pitch camp at Raila’s Nairobi residence at least three times between Wednesday and Friday so as to escape a crackdown from suspected agents of the State.
“Following the third raid on our secret operational base, it was decided that we shift base to Raila’s home in Karen. That was the only safe location we could operate from. We were being hunted down like rabbits,” the lawyer who sought anonymity is quoted by the daily.
The source further revealed three key lawyers ‘went missing’ on Friday and fail to add their signatures to the final document.
Their disappearance forced the coalition seek for replacements to sign the document barely four hours to the Friday deadline.
“Three very critical experts, when it came to signing the papers at the very tail end of the exercise, switched off their phones and disappeared. Luckily, they were not working alone so we got other lawyers to take over, given the strict timelines we were operating under,” the source said.
The lawyer added, "We had drafters of the petition itself and those handling the affidavits; we had another team dealing with research on law and others analysing the evidence available; it was a big team working round the clock to beat the Friday midnight deadline.”