Reuben Kigame Wants Kenyan ICT Students To Be Tasked With Creating Digital Electoral System For 2027

• Reuben Kigame said that having a dialogue between Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Party and Kenya Kwanza alone would lock out many key stakeholders outside the two factions
• He said that the 2022 General Election was a bygone and could not be addressed by a bipartisan dialogue, explaining that Kenya's electoral troubles were due to lack of a tamper-proof system
• The 2022 presidential aspirant said that a fully digital election system created by Kenyans would completely do away with perennial rows brought about by electoral malpractices

Presidential aspirant in the 2022 General Election, gospel artiste and author Reuben Kigame has rubbished the planned dialogue between Kenya Kwanza and Azimio la Umoja One Kenya.

Raila, Ruto dialogue details

Kigame observed that Kenya was not only about the interests of the two political factions, saying that if the high cost of living, lowering of taxes and improving healthcare services are not among issues of discussion, then the dialogue will be useless.

He went ahead to state that discussing the 2022 General Election by the dialogue team comprising five members form Azimio la Umoja and another five from Kenya Kwanza was a waste of time now that real issues were not on the agenda.

In a video posted on his YouTube, Kigame said the 2022 General Election was a bygone and added that the only long-term solution to the country's election malpractices was a fully digital voting system with powerful tamper-proof features.

"If the issues are not about bringing down cost of living, improving health services, lowering of taxes and repeal of the Finance Act 2023 the talks are useless. We should let last year's election issues go, William Ruto is now president and let us allow him to navigate this country to where it needs to be, however, he must do it the right way," said Kigame.

ICT and IT courses in Kenyan universities

He argued that discussing the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) with each of the dialoguing team wanting to have their proxies among the commissioners would not address the real issues.

"The question of IEBC, we are solving the wrong problem. We need to make all our elections digital because it will eliminate all the polling stations, agents, ballot papers, returning officers and so on," he opined.

The vocal activist went ahead to indicate that Kenya had able students who can be tasked with creating a fully digital elections system that would solve the perennial electoral rows.

"We want a digital election and I personally think that ICT students of local universities can be challenged to give us a Kenyan-based blockchain solution.

What is USSD and its uses

"Then, we will be able to go to vote at 8am and by evening we have all the results. All we need are USSD codes for contestants. There will be no use of forms and complications," he explained.

USSD is an abbreviation of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, a Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) protocol that is used to send messages.

"We trust companies like Safaricom and banks to transmit our monies through phone technologies. Why don't we trust technologies developed locally to deliver credible elections. As long as it is Azimio and Kenya Kwanza wanting their proxies in the IEBC, we are going to have the same problem in the next elections.

"It is not about commissioners as they can be manipulated. It is about having tamperproof election system and I recommend a Kenyan solution. Government prides itself in having thousands of services on the digital platforms but cannot institute a simple voting platform. We need the solution which is in a digital voting system," he added.

This comes even as Azimio la Umoja and Kenya Kwanza political factions have lined up teams to take part in the dialogue expected to address recent protests and bad blood between Ruto and Opposition leader Raila Odinga.