Blame Sonko mess on the Kenyan voter

The first order of business for acting Nairobi Governor Ben Mutura after being sworn in was to sign off on the Sh27 billion budget for Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS). Mike Sonko had refused to do that, which brought his downfall.

He had imagined he could blackmail the central government to cede authority back to him. Wrong move. He got kicked out — fast. He had become a hindrance and a nuisance, and paid the price.

Predictably, he has moved to court to challenge the Senate's upholding of his impeachment. Anyway, he still has a pending Sh357 million corruption case against him that caused him to be barred from office. Then came NMS, which reduced him to a powerless, ceremonial nothing.

From the time the NMS was established and Airforce general Mohamed Badi appointed to run it, a sidelined Sonko went angry and sulky. On social media, he would vent all his bile.

 Badi's success in revitalising the city and cleaning up Sonko's administrative mess left the governor boiling with fury. When the general was elevated to the Cabinet, I imagined Sonko foaming at the mouth in rage.

Embittered and helpless, he upped the ranting on social media, calling Badi a "Saddam Hussein" and the appointing authority, President Kenyatta, "Nairobi Super Governor." One such post had a photo of a pile of city rubbish alongside it. Ha, the theatrics of a deflated drama queen.

Impeachment

When Sonko saw his impeachment looming, he resorted to his typical cloak-and-dagger games. Sneaking a batch of friendly (or so he thought) MCAs to Diani incognito, he figured he would deny the impeachment motion a quorum. But he is not as smart as he acts. The MCAs apparently played him. The impeachment vote was done via a virtual link, which made the physical disappearance of Sonko's MCAs moot.

We may laugh at Sonko as a clown, but the joke is really on us voters. Do we need reminding that he was elected with the biggest gubernatorial landslide on record? And which governor ranked second by margin? Yea, a guy called Baba Yao in Kiambu. Sonko once told us they used to smoke weed together in the Parliament's loos. The Kenyan voter is a disgrace.

Part of this foolishness arises from Wanjiku's infatuation with "handouts" politics. Sonko had his "charitable" Sonko Rescue Team. Such tokenism masks an absence of a coherent programme or policy-driven solutions. It often also hides something darker. No wonder Sonko and Baba Yao are both facing corruption charges.

Sonko was simply incapable of running a city like Nairobi. Still, there are moments his gimmicks just blew my mind away. When Covid-19 broke out, the Governor prepared Covid-care packages with food items for poor city dwellers.

 Inside were small bottles of Hennessy cognac, which he called "a throat sanitiser." The news caused some international sensation — on CNN, New York Post and others. "Nairobi's unique Governor!", one headline shouted. Comments on photos of Sonko splashed in foreign media noted that he dressed like

American rappers; a Kenyan wag replied that it was those rappers who copied their dressing from the governor! Momentarily, Sonko became the most famous person from Kenya. For the wrong reason.

Mercenary blog

Sonko is not all sweetness and comedy, though. He's thoroughly unscrupulous. I know. Sometime last year, I was alerted to a post appearing on some obscure and mercenary blog about an article I had written on this column a while back.

Being the governor of our capital city, I would write on Sonko's administration from time to time. In that particular instance, I had raised issues with his shambolic management style and the weird way he kept shuffling, reshuffling, recycling and dropping county executive officers.

Hilariously, the blog post claimed I had been bribed to write that article by politician Peter Kenneth, a certain Agnes Kagure, and Internal Security PS Karanja Kibicho. It described the trio as my "very close associates." Eish!? As public figures, I am, of course, quite familiar with who Kibicho and Kenneth are, but I have never in my life met or spoken to either.

I don't even know who Ms Kagure is. Of course I do personally know my share of public figures and so-called 'fixers', but not those three (not that I have anything against them). In Sonko's mind the trio are his worst enemies. He doesn't hide it at all about Kibicho, who he frequently lambasts as being the epitome of the "Deep State."

Sonko's fingerprints on the silly blog post were all too obvious. I live in Nairobi and know enough of his shenanigans. A person who secretly tapes his associates during private conversations can do anything. Wrestling in a pigsty is not fun. If you have better things to do, do them.

Anyway that was then. The chap has now gone. Preacher-cum-politician Margaret Wanjiru has wasted no time announcing her interest to succeed Sonko and of her affiliation to Tangatanga, though am not sure they are agreed on her. Whoever will be Tangatanga's choice, they'll rely on Sonko to bring in his still considerable slum support. But the question is, does Nairobi need a new governor? With Badi's contract extending to 2022, a new governor will just be a politicking irritant.

@GitauWarigi