The resistible rise and fall of Mike Mbuvi Sonko

On Thursday night, the colourful political career of Gidion Mike Mbuvi Sonko as Nairobi City County governor came to an end after the Senate upheld his impeachment by the county assembly.

It is fair to say that Kenya has seen few politicians quite like Mr Sonko. Flamboyant, generous to a fault, unpredictable and cantankerous at times. Yet these same qualities endeared Mr Sonko to his legions of fans and supporters.

Sonko, who grabbed headlines in one decade with sweet promises to the urban poor and endless theatrics, was virtually unknown until mid-2010. Around that time, residents of Eastlands began to wake up to billboards urging them to vote “Yes” in the referendum on the Constitution.

The billboards featured the photos of the then President Mwai Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka. Between them was a young man in a white suit they could not immediately recognise.

Read: Governor Sonko turns to court in fight against impeachment

Sonko, as they would eventually learn, was running for the Makadara parliamentary seat, which had fallen vacant after the 2007 election of Dick Wathika was invalidated by the courts for irregularities. He won the seat in an upset over city heavyweights — ODM candidate Reuben Ndolo and Mr Wathika in the by-election. It was a stunning coup. The kijana wa mtaa had conquered the city politics and given it a breath of freshness.

Then the dirt began to fly.

Even in a country that has numerous politicians facing court cases and trouble with the law, Sonko seemed extraordinary. He was an ex-prisoner who had “fled” Shimo La Tewa prison in Mombasa. Police also began investigating whether this was the man who had pending legal matters in Kibera, Makadara and Mombasa courts, while several people emerged to say that the man had defrauded them.

Warrant of his arrest

It also emerged that a court had issued a warrant of his arrest for allegedly jumping bail in an Sh18 million fraud case in 2005. He was cleared by the courts later.

Even after he was elected as the Senator of Nairobi City in the 2013 General Election and later on as its second governor, deposing Dr Evans Kidero, he never stopped getting into trouble with the law.

In October 2019, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) summoned him to respond to allegations that he had more than 10 pending criminal cases. In his declaration forms to the EACC on March 9, 2017, the politician had said he had no pending criminal cases.

Under the law, every individual running for public office must fill out self-declaration forms available on EACC’s website before being cleared to contest in an election.

The EACC also initiated investigations into alleged corruption by the governor, while the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) embarked on a probe on a group called Sonko Defence Force that caused disruption during Labour Day celebrations.

In December 2019, the National Police Service announced that it would prefer assault and other related charges against Sonko for obstructing lawful arrest in Voi. It later on decided not to charge him.

Despite his troubles with the law, Sonko remained a darling of the poor in the city. His Sonko Rescue Team provided freelance firefighting, rescue and ambulance services to the needy. He was always on hand to bail out needy cases, and put his neck on the line defending hawkers, squatters, slum dwellers, matatu operators and others from city authorities.

In 2017 he became Governor of Nairobi County, garnering the third largest number of votes for any aspirant in the election. Only President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Odinga received more votes than him. This emphatic victory convinced him to consider vying for the presidency — or possibly deputising a presidential candidate — in the 2022 polls.

Record conversations

Since joining politics, Sonko has consistently made headlines. He is known to record conversations and share pictures, even those taken in private.

In his first months as MP, he was thrown out of Parliament for wearing sunglasses, sporting studs in his ears and chewing gum while in the House.

“In the history of this world, since God created this earth, men have never imitated women,” former Bumula MP Bifwoli Wakoli said during debate in 2011 to eject the legislator from the august House for being too “flashy”.

Some legislators felt he was going too far with his antics and becoming an embarrassment to Parliament, with long-time legislator George Khaniri describing him as someone soiling “the dignity of the august House”.

First election

After winning his first election in the September 2010 by-election, he turned up in Parliament dressed in a baggy T-shirt, baseball jacket. a cap and open shoes, forcing the Speaker to send him away. The Speaker told him that he would only allow him in if he was “properly dressed”.

The new MP walked out of Parliament, crossed two streets into a clothing shop, bought 10 pairs of suits and a pair of shoes.

In October 2019, the former Governor was photographed wearing the Versace brand from head-to-toe on his way to the Kenya Revenue Authority offices in Nairobi, where he was questioned over suspect payments. The ensemble was composed of a cap, sunglasses, shirt and matching sandals. The Versace Baroque silk shirt he wore costs $1,395 (Sh144,000).

He has also been photographed wearing a Gucci GG Supreme bucket hat that goes for about Sh67,500.

The governor was also once photographed with a Globe-Trotter Riviera 20 carry-on trolley worth $1,950 (Sh200,000). Globe-Trotter is a British luxury luggage, suitcase and accessory brand.

The man who would grow up to prefer the flashy things in life, and who appeared to have a penchant for anything golden — or pretending to be golden — was born in 1973 to a banker mother and accountant father. His parents divorced when he was quite young, the mother staying in Mombasa’s Kisauni area and the father in Nairobi’s Jericho estate.

Whereas Sonko has always claimed that he is a self-made man who was a millionaire before he turned 18, little is known about his business interests. His most known asset is a hotel located in Kilifi County.

“People say it’s luck. What they don’t know is that I only engage in what I am able to win, I trust myself and I never let go,” he said during an interview with the Nation in 2011.

As a teenager, he wanted to be a billionaire businessman and the world’s best basketball player. He is said to have showed great ingenuity from a young age as a student and was on the team that won the National Secondary Schools Basketball competition in 1990 while at Kwale High School.

Sonko says he made his break from land speculation, adding that he bought a beach property in 1991 for Sh1.5 million. That was during the first term of his final year in high school.

In a previous interview, he said he sold the property to a white man for Sh7 million. At 19, he said, he bought his first car, a second-hand Mercedes Benz 500SL.

Sonko’s tenure as governor was very tumultuous. The telltale signs that things were not going well at City Hall began with the refusal by the governor to approve Peter Kariuki to be county secretary. It took five months before Mr Kariuki was approved by the County Assembly in April 2018 as the governor kept delaying his approval for “consultations”.

His reasoning at that time was that Mr Kariuki’s nomination was part of a wider scheme by “State House operatives” to continue controlling his administration.

By the time Mr Kariuki took office, deputy governor Polycarp Igathe had resigned. Mr Igathe’s decision to quit, and Sonko’s refusal to accommodate Mr Kariuki, effectively put him on a collision course with the Jubilee Party machinery, and eventually President Uhuru Kenyatta.

After Mr Igathe’s resignation, the governor decided to run the county as a lone ranger without a deputy, with the courts ruling that he could not nominate a deputy after he was charged in court. Executives who differed with him or whom he felt were not working were fired or suspended.

Assembly Speaker Beatrice Elachi was the first to have a taste of the post-Igathe county leadership when she was impeached in April 2018. She later came back to office and then resigned in a huff.

After Elachi’s ouster, the county went for a long time without a properly constituted office, forcing the Senate to summon Governor Sonko to explain why he was running Nairobi as a one-man show.

Even then, Sonko vowed to continue with his style, saying he had no apologies over his leadership style and adding that “I will go the ruthless way as Evans Kidero (former governor) tried the corporate way and failed”.

“It is working and it is going to work. Nairobi needs controversial and fearless leaders, not corporates. I will not entertain cartels and the corrupt in my administration. People have to understand me. That is my way of leadership. I deal with cartels ruthlessly,” Mr Sonko said.

The former Governor also picked a fight with Interior principal secretary Karanja Kibicho accusing him of trying to undermine his leadership.

Additionally, the governor claimed the National Intelligence Service had planted spies in a hotel overlooking his Upper Hill residence with the aim of tracking his movements.

Multiple interviews with current and former City Hall staffers, some of whom started with him as Makadara lawmaker, revealed a complex personality who appeared easygoing with the masses but hard to please at work.

“When you take, say, 10 issues to him, by the time you are on the third item, he has lost concentration. He will begin checking his WhatsApp messages or log into Facebook page for updates on things that are trending. And all his handlers know this. The moment you see that happen, you will be wasting your time if you continue talking to him,” an individual familiar with Sonko’s operations said in a previous interview.

“He has no regard for procedure, process or protocol. He does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants it and with whom he wants it.”

Now the man who brought a unique style of leadership to one of Africa’s most important cities, and who refused counsel, has lost his office. But has he lost his clout?

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