Speedily find killers of electoral agency official

CCTV footage of shows Musyoka leaving the polling centre unaccompanied. [iStockphoto]

Daniel Mbolu Musyoka should not have met his death the way he did. May his soul rest in peace. Mr Musyoka was the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission's returning officer of Embakasi East Constituency in Nairobi.

CCTV footage of shows Musyoka leaving the polling centre unaccompanied only for his body to be discovered in Oloitoktok in Kajiado County.

Since he disappeared, his daughter going by her Twitter account @prumbolu expressed the uncertainty and pain a girl should never have over her father. She has not posted anything since the body was discovered in the thicket. The pain the family feels is unimaginable.

Musyoka's death comes barely three weeks after the fifth anniversary of the death of Chris Msando who was killed alongside Carol Ngumbu on July 28, 2017. Mr Msando was the ICT director at IEBC when he was tortured and killed.

His killers have not been brought to justice to date. IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati has expressed worries about the threats on his officials some who he says have been arrested "to intimidate them". The threats and killings are most likely meant to skew election results.

This is a worrying trend. The least the country expects is that Musyoka will not be another statistic. Police officers should pull all stops and find both the killers and the motive.

It took hours for DCI detectives to identify a boda boda rider who assaulted a driver recently. The same speed and forensic expertise should be deployed in tracing Musyoka's killers.

Such acts have watered down the independence of the electoral body and the least we can do to protect the little that remains is by nailing down the culprits. The tears of Musyoka's family should not be in vain.

The public's distrust of our elections will linger for as long as such mysterious killings continue to take place during elections. Failure by the police to bring to book killers of Msando and Musyoka can only embolden further those who would want to subvert the will of the people by permanently silencing the electoral referees.