IEBC CEO Ezra Chiloba [PHOTO/standardmedia.co.ke]
Well, to start us off, he is a staunch adventist - that you know.
But in his own words, Chiloba says he is committed to his principals and you must meet a certain level of standard to be in his plans.
"I think that’s exactly the problem people have with me. I insist on certain bare minimums and they just do not know how to deal with me. I guess that is when they resort to these sorts of things as slander,” he says.
Dispelling speculation that he is President Uhuru Kenyatta's man and that h=they have had close family ties with Jomo Gecaga, he said he had never met the family until last year on official duty.
“I had never met Jomo Gecaga (President’s Kenyatta’s personal assistant) until December 8 last year when he brought the President’s papers here. And I was like, so you are the guy? Up to this point, I can’t pick out the President’s brother, Muhoho Kenyatta from the crowd. I hear he was in Bomas but I didn’t see him.”
However, he says he has been a friend of DP William Ruto's advisor Korir Sing'oei with whom they come from the same village.
“He’s like my brother. Apart from the fact we come from the same village, he gave me my first job at Centre for Minority Rights back in my second year in campus. This is a man I have a natural connection with but that’s as far as it goes. We don’t discuss commission stuff with him,” he says.
Then there was the rumour that he was a close ally of the Cord fraternity, courting Raila Odinga's daughter Rosemary Odinga. Chiloba however won't agree to any of this.
“I heard that I had a girlfriend in CORD leader Raila Odinga’s daughter Rosemary. There was even a rumour that I sneaked out to check on her in South Africa. I hear all these sorts of things and I am taken aback... in a way, I like it because it keeps people floating about while I do my thing,” he says.
But a section of his colleagues say he is a proud man.
"He’s insensitive and does not consider advice. There’s a tinge of false pride in him and he appears mesmerised by the system. He tends to open up more to system-friendly people but is more guarded with non-system guys,” the Standard reports from a colleague.
But others call him a straighforward and honest man.
“The Ezra I have known for years is a gentleman, a truth-teller, ideologically firm and a solid character. There are Christians and then Christians. Ezra is a Christian, one who has lived by the Bible. He’s never been a phony character. I would spiral into untold depression if I were to find that he has a double personality,” The Standard further quotes a friend Osiany.
“While I am looking forward to the petition to bring out the truth, for me and Ezra, it goes beyond the judicial process. When all this is over, I would still want to look him in the eye and ask him what went wrong and what role, if any, did he play,” the budding ODM operative adds.