Nakuru Senator Tabitha Karanja has given Governor Susan Kihika an ultimatum to resign following bizarre occurrences in the county that culminated in her conviction and sentencing to six months in prison on Tuesday, February 18.
Addressing a briefing on Tuesday, the Senator urged Governor Kihika to resign from office immediately or she would kickstart the process of impeaching her from office.
Karanja revealed that if the Governor did not heed the resignation calls, members of the Nakuru County Assembly (MCAs) should impeach her. If this does not work, Karanja stated that she would table a vote of no confidence in the Senate, adding that senators have agreed to back her bid.
"Where are our MCAs? You are supposed to impeach Her Excellency Susan Kihika, our Governor. If you fail to do so, I will table a vote of no confidence but I am begging her to honourably resign," Karanja stated.
"She has failed in her leadership of Nakuru County. That one I can tell her for free. There is no way we can keep having people living with disabilities protesting because their children's bodies are missing from morgues. We have a young man who was taken by KWS at Lake Nakuru and is still missing."
Apart from the two tragic incidents, Karanja also stressed the gravity of the crime Kihika was convicted of, which centered on dumping waste into Lake Nakuru.
Her biggest bone of contention with the offence was its impact not only on the residents of Nakuru County who rely on the lake for several activities but also on the tourism sector in the county, to which the lake highly contributes.
"Our Governor has been sentenced to six months in jail or a fine of Ksh2 billion. What is important is what she was convicted for. The Court said that the Governor had been issued a court order stopping her from dumping sewage in Lake Nakuru but she defied it. This is a very huge offence that no other City in the world has experienced," Karanja lamented.
"It's like the Governor wanted to kill us all. People fish in that lake, people swim in it and our animals that attract tourism in this county also drink water from the same lake. Our flamingoes, which are the branding of our county's logo, have started migrating from Nakuru."
Karanja also took issue with the Governor's overreliance on the County Secretary to fulfill her mandate as she had flown to Texas, America, leaving the county residents to fend for themselves.
Despite the County receiving the second highest county fund allocation, she stated that the county still had one of the worst healthcare services in the country.
"We receive the second highest equitable share as a country after Nairobi. We receive Ksh15 billion in addition to our own source revenue, which is estimated at Ksh10.9 billion. Yet reports say we only collect Ksh2 billion. Where is the rest?" she quipped.
"There is a lot of corruption and theft in our county and we will not allow it. Enough is enough."
