Stone-cold reality as Sonko goes down the ‘wrap-it’ hole
What you need to know:
- As Mr Sonko prepares to play his cards before the Senate, the moments he showed up in public with messages written on his head will play in some people’s minds.
- He has a reputation of being a joker, doing things no other governor has imagined doing, for example the day he went live online while chewing miraa and reading fans’ comments
In the digital game of Solitaire, if the computer tells you there are no more moves you can make with your cards, you have lost.
That game mirrors Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko’s current predicament. He seemingly has “no more moves” to make, given the direction the Senate has decided to take on hearing his impeachment by the Nairobi County Assembly.
Solitaire was last in the local news in June when Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru was attending hearings before an 11-member Senate committee that was interrogating her impeachment by the Kirinyaga County Assembly. Ms Waiguru was captured calmly playing the immersing game on her phone as the hearings progressed. She would later retain her job.
Mr Sonko definitely knows the walls of the Senate more than Ms Waiguru, having been the Nairobi Senator between 2013 and 2017, but he is hardly likely to afford to playing Solitaire during his plenary hearing.
A plenary hearing means facing the whole House and the last time it happened in a Senate that no longer even attempts to be pokerfaced due to influence by party leaders, Ferdinand Waititu Babayao lost his job as Kiambu governor. Does Sonko have any more cards to play to cling onto power?
It is a game he has played long and hard ever since he became the city’s governor, holding some cards close to his oft bling-laden chest, especially on the issue of appointing a deputy governor to replace Polycarp Igathe, who quit after barely six months in office. It is a game he has kept going, using his unorthodox ways of playing politics. But now it appears his opponent wants to wrap up the game victorious and leave some humiliation on Mr Sonko with his cards.
In a week when President Uhuru Kenyatta explained why he trusts people from the military to conduct civilian works, it is ever so clear that Mr Sonko is out of favour with the Head of State, who has not kept secret his admiration for Nairobi Metropolitan Services director-general, Maj-Gen Mohammed Badi.
As Mr Sonko prepares to play his cards before the Senate, the moments he showed up in public with messages written on his head will play in some people’s minds. “Peace”, “UhuRuto not guilty”, “(Censored) Respect Your Wife” are among the messages he has ever showed up in public displaying on his head.
Given the recent happenings where he was with a section of Nairobi MCAs at the Coast but still somehow the quorum for his impeachment sitting was reached through remote logging and voting, probably he might have some more messages to display in future, like “Trust No One”, “Nairobi Has Its Owners” or maybe “Betrayal in the City”.
A governor who is received with applause in most gathering he attends anywhere in the country – given his appeal to the masses – and who is perhaps the most covered by international media among Kenya’s 47 county bosses, Mr Sonko will definitely seek a new way of playing his cards whichever way the proceedings of this week might go.
He has a reputation of being a joker, doing things no other governor has imagined doing, for example the day he went live online while chewing miraa and reading fans’ comments. That is what has endeared him to some sections of the society.
In Solitaire, the “Joker” is the trump card that can change situations. Will the joker find a Joker?
