Many seek to be Nairobi’s king; who will wear coveted crown?

All opinion polls rank Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja, of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), and corporate executive Polycarp Igathe (Jubilee Party) as the frontrunners in the race to become governor of Nairobi County, home of Kenya’s capital.

Nairobi is the 13th-largest African city but the latest “Africa Wealth Report”, last year’s, put it as the sixth wealthiest on the continent, worth $47 billion (Sh5.8 trillion). It was fourth in the number of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs)—fellows with $1 million and above—at 6,000, behind Johannesburg (15,1000), Cairo (7,500) and Cape Town (6,500).

Interestingly, East Africa’s commercial hub and leading financial centre was reported to have more HNWIs than Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos (5,000).

You might expect, then, that a candidate for Nairobi governor would cut a C-suite image and, perhaps, have some gigantic campaign poster in which he dons a Savile Row three-piece suit. Well, one or two other hopefuls are shown suited, but not so for the two frontrunners. Sakaja is dressed down for a trip to the market in several of his posters and his most pimped-up looks are with him in a bright white shirt, tie and rolled-up sleeves. Igathe has mostly stuck to one look: White shirt, tie and rolled-up sleeves.

Know something about Nairobi

Sakaja and Igathe know something about Nairobi that would make a classic C-suite look an electoral kiss of death. For starters, in 2018, a Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey revealed that it’s among the most unequal cities in the world. Just 20 per cent of Nairobi’s population controls more than 75 per cent of its wealth. All of 40 per cent of the residents at the bottom of the income pyramid control a miserly 0.4 per cent of its wealth.

An estimated 60 per cent of Nairobi’s population occupies just six per cent of its land and about 70 per cent live in 200 informal settlements in and around the city.

That tells us the fellows who “own” the city, the moneyed folks and international financial capital, don’t control it. The millions of non-rich Nairobians do—and they can be unforgiving in the voting booth.

Sonko effect

Secondly, it is the “Sonko” effect. In 2017, an electoral revolt by Nairobi’s plebeians against its patricians elected Mike Sonko as the governor. In his brightly coloured T-shirts and heavy gold chains, Sonko was a product of Nairobi’s dark underbelly and as far away from a C-suite type as a politician could be. Let’s say, if you visited his house, your teapot wouldn’t come covered with a cosy or your wine served in a stemless wineglass. But the masses loved him.

The owners of the city eventually regrouped and, capitalising on his mistakes, ousted him in 2020. But those who have come after him are still afraid of his voters and are careful to tip a hat to them. The man’s name is not officially on the Nairobi ballot—but it is.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they remind us how the city has changed, culturally and economically.

City spread

As the endless by-passes and ring roads were built, the city spread, with a dizzying number of new apartments and mini and big malls. Fifteen years ago, you could know all the nice restaurants, clubs and residential places in Nairobi off the top of your head. Today, may the gods be with you without Google Maps and if somebody doesn’t drop you a pin.

The city’s middle class has grown and is more youthful today than it has ever been. These young people are the ones who have fanned out to live in the flashy but more affordable housing developed along the new by-passes and highways.

Many are creatives and small-time innovators who make a living selling music, art, coding skills, clothes, design services and the wide range of products they make online. Theirs is a democratic, T-shirt-and-jeans-wearing kind of capital. I’ve been to Ruaka, and Fourways, in neighbouring “Nairobi’s bedroom”, Kiambu. Some of the enclaves where these New Age creatures live are different and cool types of communities. A three-piece suit is a caricature.

But the number of the millions at the bottom of the food chain has also grown and their circumstances seem to have been worsened by the pandemic. The inequality in Nairobi appears to have grown sharper. The masses, though, still have the vote.

The white shirt, tie and rolled-up sleeves (a nod to the working class) are how Sakaja and Igathe, and others like them around the country, are solving the old problem of how to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds; how to straddle two conflicting worlds. In three weeks, we shall have the jury’s verdict on their endeavours.

Mr Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. @cobbo3