'My remarks were a figure of speech,' Hassan Omar tells IEBC

UDA Secretary-General Hassan Omar before the IEBC Electoral Code of Conduct Committee at Anniversary Towers in Nairobi on October 21, 2026. [Kanyiri Wahito, Standard]

United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Secretary-General Hassan Omar has defended his September 11, 2026, speech in Mombasa County, saying his remarks were figurative and not an instruction to commit electoral fraud.

Appearing before the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Electoral Code of Conduct Committee on Wednesday, October 21, Omar said his words were not intended to cause harm.

The remarks in question suggested that fingerprints of dead people could be used to cast votes for President William Ruto in the 2027 election to help him secure a second term.

“On election day, we have to fight for every vote. Even if someone died, we should take their fingerprint before they are buried, use it in the BVR system and cast a vote even for someone who died that very day,” Omar said last month.

“Even some of those we are burying today, that is our vote because that vote is our bullet, our shield. We cannot go back to where we were before.”

Through his lawyers, Emmanuel Kibet and Adrian Kamotho, Omar sought to have the charges struck out, find no evidence of any breach and dismiss the charges entirely.

They added that if the committee was to sanction him then it should be a formal warning.

In his defence, Omar said the remarks were intended to emphasise the importance of every eligible voter participating in the election and the power of numbers at the ballot box.

“Figuratively, that meant not even death should keep you away from voting,” lawyer Kibet argued, adding that the message was directed at the living audience.

The lawyers said voter turnout in the coastal region had remained below 50 per cent in each of the past three general elections.

They argued that registering a dead person as a voter and casting a ballot in their name was impossible.

They also said Omar had no control over the IEBC, which is mandated to collect biometric data, register voters and oversee elections.

According to Omar’s lawyers, the crowd he [Omar] addressed cheered, laughed and clapped, indicating that they understood the remarks as humorous rather than a literal instruction.

“We urge this commission to understand that it was simply figurative,” the lawyers said, describing the remarks as a campaign speech that relied on humour, imagery and exaggeration.

To illustrate their argument, the lawyers cited Matthew 5:29, which urges believers to remove an offending eye rather than allow the whole body to be cast into hell, adding the biblical passage was understood as a vivid expression of the seriousness of avoiding sin, rather than a literal command. They argued that Omar had similarly used imagery to drive home his message.

Omar told the committee that he did not intend to cause alarm and that his exaggeration was meant to encourage Coast residents to register to vote.

He further argued that his remarks contained no threat, targeted no individual and made no reference to ethnicity, religion or any other identity. He said he had not called for action against anyone.

The UDA secretary general further argued that his remarks did not suggest that the ballot could be manipulated, adding that other leaders had made similar statements.

“It is an address devoted to persuading citizens that their vote matters and they should turn out and vote in large numbers,” his Kibet said, describing the speech as an expression of confidence in the IEBC rather than an attack on the commission.

When his turn to address the committee came, Omar said that his words may have meant different things to different people but the coast residents that he was addressing understood him.

He added that it was a rallying call to them to register as voters and ask for historical injustices to be remedied.

“We are on the verge of victory as a party and coalition and we will not in any way erode any institutional authority engage in any illegality to give any basis to anybody to erode the credibility and legality of our victory.”

He said that he issued a clarification after the words went viral to help people understand his context and where he was coming from.

He said that the opposition has been accusing the UDA party of all manner of things including a rigging plot yet none of them were true.