Pathologists have failed to nail down what caused the death of Embakasi East Returning Officer Daniel Musyoka.

Five pathologists comprising three government pathologists, one representing the family and another from the  Independent Medical Legal Unit conducted the autopsy at the Loitokitok sub-county hospital mortuary on Wednesday.

By 5 pm, all five pathologists could not establish the cause of Musyoka’s death. They resolved to take 12 samples from Musyoka’s body for further toxicology and DNA tests in Nairobi.

Also present at the Loitokitok sub-county hospital mortuary were CSI-DCI forensics from Nairobi, DCI officers from Loitokitok, representatives from Haki Africa, IMLU, MedUp, IPOA, and family.

Preliminary investigations show Musyoka may have been killed on Monday evening or early Tuesday morning.

Oloitokitok police boss Kipruto Ruto said Musyoka’s body had fresh wounds indicating the incident took place hours before he was discovered.

“When the police arrived at the scene, we discovered that it was a male body and it was still fresh,” he said.

Ruto also mentioned that Musyoka had wounds in the arm indicating a struggle with the killers.

Police also suspect the killers were familiar with the area given the thicket where the body was found.

According to Ruto, it would have been difficult for new people to manoeuvre the forest, especially in the morning.

The White House has said a new type of COVID-19 vaccine specially designed to protect against the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants will be available next month.

If the shots meet FDA standards, they will likely be available in early to mid-September, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said on Tuesday.

The Biden administration is currently trying to “get out of the acute emergency phase” where the US government is buying the vaccines, treatments, and diagnostic tests.

“My hope is that in 2023, you’re going to see the commercialization of almost all of these products,” Jha said. “Some of that is actually going to begin this fall, in the days and weeks ahead,” he added.

Separately, first lady Dr. Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms, her spokesperson said Tuesday.

This was after President Joe Biden also tested positive for the COVID-19 and had to be isolated even as he has recovered.

Electoral commission chairman Wafula Chebukati has finally told his side of the story regarding his fallout with fellow IEBC commissioners who disowned the presidential election results.

In a statement Wednesday, Chebukati explained that the four rebel commissioners led by Vice Chair Juliana Cherera tried to have the results moderated to force a repeat election.

“During a briefing meeting held on 15th August 2022 at around 3.00 pm before the final declaration of the Presidential Election results, the four Commissioners demanded that the Chairperson moderates the results for purpose of forcing an election Re-run contrary to their oath of office,” Chebukati said.

Cherera, Francis Wanderi, Justus Nyang’aya and Irene Masit allegedly wanted Chebukati to declare that neither William Ruto nor Raila Odinga hit the 50 percent plus one vote required to secure a first-round win.

“This is tantamount to subverting the Constitution and the sovereign will of the people of Kenya. The Chairperson refused to yield to this unconstitutional and illegal demand and proceeded to declare the results of the Presidential Election as received from the polling stations, and contained in Form 34A, in accordance with the law,” Chebukati added.

The IEBC chair also mentioned that he involved all the commissioners, contrary to their claims that the vote tallying process was opaque.

“As the gazetted National Returning Officer and in the spirit of teamwork, the Chairperson involved all Commissioners including Juliana Cherera, Francis Wanderi, Justus Nyang’aya and Irene Masit in all activities of verification and tallying,” he said.

“Their duties were well defined in writing and allocated at the National Tally Center (NTC). They had access to all results beforehand and interchangeably announced them for six (6) days in the full glare of live television.”

Chebukati also clarified that the declaration of presidential results is the sole responsibility of the Chairman of the Commission.

“This constitutional mandate falls squarely on the chairman of the commission, who is the National Returning Officer as gazetted in Notice No. 4956 of 28th April 2022. The role of national returning officer for presidential election is not a shared responsibility and not subject to plenary decisions of the commission. All returning officers including the national returning officer for presidential election took an individual oath of secrecy before embarking on their duties,” wrote Chebukati.

“In addition, the chairperson and commissioners took oath of office at the time of appointment. It is an oath of office that the chairperson faithfully executed, when he declared the results for the presidential election on Monday, 15th August 2022.”