Nairobi Governor, Mike Sonko, cleared the air over his recent unprecedented move to hand over some of the function of the county to the national government.
Taking to his Facebook page, the embattled governor explained that he felt the move was necessary in order to ape some of the top cities in the world.
"My government set out on a fact-finding mission that saw us benchmark and take lessons from other jurisdictions across the world including Washington DC in the US and Abuja in Nigeria,
"From these case studies, we established that cities and metropolis, the size of Nairobi, are best served jointly by devolved units and central governments," reads a section of his post.
The governor further explained that the move was aimed at improving service delivery to the residents of the capital, vehemently denying that his handover was forced by his recent woes with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
"Ever since I took over the leadership of Nairobi City County as the Second Governor, my overriding agenda has been to ensure that residents of Nairobi receive efficient and effective public services," he reiterated.
The People Daily had on February 27 claimed that President Uhuru Kenyatta had pushed for the deal in anger after Sonko demoted the acting County Secretary Leboo ole Morintat, an allegation the governor rubbished in his latest statement.
"We believe our bold decision to collaborate with the National Government through the transfer of some of our functions will create positive governance precedence that will help strengthen devolution," he emphasised.
Sonko went on to thank the president for agreeing to steer the county, adding that he was certain that the deal would see Nairobi regain its status as the 'Green City in the Sun'.
The deal has raised several questions, with a Nairobi resident, Robinson Murimi Karani, going as far as moving to court in a bid to block the move.
He claimed that Sonko was not authorized to make the decision and denied Nairobi residents a reasonable opportunity to make their case.
Further, Karani stated that the decision to hand over some of the duties and functions of the county government was unlawful, unreasonable, procedurally unfair and taken in a bid to prejudice the legal rights of the county residents.
However, weighing in on the entire story Machakos governor Alfred Mutua claimed that Sonko engineered his own demise.
"Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko had brought it on himself. The move was necessitated by flaws and the failure by Nairobi to run as a strong county, considering that it is the capital of the country," Mutua stated while speaking at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) after presenting Chap Chap party recommendation to Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) secretariat.
