2022's Darkest Moment: Two Election Officials Died

Daniel Musyoka, the Embakasi East returning officer, went missing and was found dead. Geoffrey Gitobu, the Gichugu returning officer, collapsed and died during tallying. Two lives lost in the line of democratic duty.

The 2022 general election made history for all the right reasons on security. For the first time since the return of multiparty elections in 1992, no election-related death was attributed to police conduct. The Election Security Arrangement Programme (ESAP) trained 180,000 police officers. Eight partner agencies coordinated across five tiers of governance. Cases of electoral violence were reduced compared to every previous election since 1992.

But behind these positive headlines, two men died. Their deaths did not make the security statistics in the way that police shootings or mob violence would. They were quieter tragedies, one a suspected murder and the other a medical emergency under the extreme stress of election duties. Both deserve to be remembered.

Daniel Musyoka: The Embakasi East Mystery

Daniel Mbolu Musyoka was the IEBC constituency returning officer for Embakasi East, one of Nairobi's 17 constituencies. On election day, 9th August 2022, Musyoka went missing from the constituency tallying centre at the East African School of Aviation in Embakasi.

His disappearance triggered immediate alarm. As the returning officer, Musyoka was responsible for receiving, verifying, and announcing results from all polling stations in the constituency. Without him, the tallying process ground to a halt. The IEBC deployed a replacement, but the disruption raised serious questions about the security of election officials.

Days later, Musyoka's body was found in Oloitokitok, Kajiado County, nearly 200 kilometres from Nairobi. The circumstances of his death remained unclear, with investigations pointing toward foul play. As of 2026, the case has seen arrests and court proceedings but no final conviction. The Daily Nation reported extensively on the investigation, which exposed vulnerabilities in the protection of IEBC officials during the tallying process.

Musyoka's death was not just a personal tragedy. It disrupted the democratic process in a constituency with 387,797 registered voters. The Embakasi East results were delayed, adding to tensions during an already tense national tallying period. It also raised a chilling question: if a returning officer can disappear from a tallying centre, what does that say about the security of the entire process?

Geoffrey Gitobu: Collapse Under Pressure

Geoffrey Gitobu was the IEBC constituency returning officer for Gichugu in Kirinyaga County. Unlike Musyoka's case, Gitobu's death was not a result of violence. He collapsed during the tallying process and died, reportedly from a medical condition exacerbated by the extreme stress and long hours of election duty.

Election officials in Kenya work under extraordinary pressure. Returning officers are responsible for managing dozens of polling stations, resolving disputes between party agents, verifying results under public scrutiny, and working through the night during tallying. The physical and psychological toll is enormous, and there is little support infrastructure for officials who fall ill during the process.

Gitobu's death highlighted a gap in IEBC's duty-of-care provisions. While 180,000 police officers were trained on election security, the health and welfare of civilian election officials received far less attention. The IEBC's Post-Election Evaluation Report acknowledged challenges but did not specifically address the medical support available to returning officers during tallying.

The Broader Security Picture: What the 2022 ESAP Achieved

Despite these two deaths, the 2022 election's security record was genuinely historic. The ESAP framework represented a fundamental shift in approach. Previous elections had emphasised criminal sanctions. The 2022 approach focused on prevention and risk management.

Key achievements included:

• Zero police-attributed election deaths for the first time since 1992, a 30-year milestone.
• Reduced cases of electoral violence compared to all previous elections.
• 180,000 police officers trained on election security protocols.
• Eight partner agencies coordinating through a five-tier structure from national advisory level to county and constituency hubs.
• Updated security materials incorporating the Data Protection Act, COVID-19 protocols, vulnerable groups considerations, and chain-of-command formalisation.

The contrast with previous elections is stark. The 2007 post-election violence killed over 1,000 people and displaced 600,000. The 2013 and 2017 elections both saw police-attributed deaths. In 2022, the security framework worked. But the deaths of Musyoka and Gitobu show that even the best security frameworks have blind spots.

Challenges the ESAP Did Not Solve

The IEBC's evaluation identified six specific challenges with the ESAP framework:

1. Election security not in NPS curriculum: Training 180,000 officers before each election is not sustainable. Election security needs to be a permanent subject in police training.
2. ESAP only during election years: The framework is currently only implemented during election years, rather than throughout the entire electoral cycle.
3. Donor dependency: ESAP is primarily funded by international donors, not the Government of Kenya. This creates sustainability and sovereignty concerns.
4. Evolving security risks: Electoral security risks constantly mutate, requiring ongoing conflict analysis rather than one-time preparations.
5. Tallying centre security breaches: The Musyoka case exposed vulnerabilities in tallying centre access control and official protection.
6. Missing human rights elements: PWD considerations, gender participation, and human rights elements were absent from the ESAP curriculum.

The recommendation to integrate election security into the accreditation framework for national tallying centres directly addressed the tallying centre vulnerability exposed by Musyoka's disappearance. According to Kenya Law court records, the security of tallying centres was raised during the presidential election petition as a factor affecting the credibility of the process.

Lessons for 2027

The deaths of Daniel Musyoka and Geoffrey Gitobu carry different lessons. Musyoka's case points to the need for better physical security of election officials, particularly returning officers who hold the keys to constituency results. Gitobu's case points to the need for medical support and welfare provisions for officials working under extreme stress.

Both cases also highlight the importance of parallel systems. When a returning officer disappears or collapses, the results from that constituency are thrown into limbo. If party agents have independently tallied results through their own systems, the process can survive individual points of failure without the entire constituency result being questioned.

For the full context of 2022 security achievements, see our analysis of how 120,731 observers watched the vote. And for the technology that made results transmission independent of any single official, read about the 380 million requests to the IEBC portal.

Resilient systems protect democracy when individuals cannot. Votrack's parallel vote tallying creates an independent verification layer that does not depend on any single official. When every polling station has an agent reporting through USSD, web, or Telegram, no single point of failure can derail the count. Request a demo for 2027.