In the last week, Governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko has been trending for all the wrong reasons, putting President Uhuru Kenyatta on the spot for taking over Nairobi from him.
From rejecting to assent to a bill allocating more than Ksh15 billion to the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) Director-General Mohammed Badi, to attracting international ridicule for donating small bottles of Hennessy (a type of brandy made in Cognac, France) alongside his welfare packages.
Despite Interior CS Fred Matiang'i's ban on direct donations, he the governor carried on with his charity unbothered.
Sonko's defiance is one that has left many wondering if it was a mistake for the president to take over the county.
In fact, the former Nairobi Deputy Governor Jonathan Mueke, questioned how the national government expected Sonko not to sabotage the county after stripping him of some functions.
"How do you take away someone’s job, leave him in office and not expect sabotage? He will do everything in his power to make sure Nairobi doesn’t function," Mueke expressed on his Twitter page.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, political analyst and University of Nairobi (UoN) don Herman Manyora stated that it was wrong for the national government to take all key functions of the county government.
He argued that a middle ground was not an option, adding that the constitution did not anticipate such a situation, where the transfer of power would be done through the back door.
Manyora added that takeover should not have been interpreted to mean the assumption of all the key functions by the national government.
"Uhuru should have taken a section or two to the national government. If Uhuru took health and physical planning, that would have been understood but not all the key functions. That was a wrong deal," Manyora concluded.
In a decision that was considered the least disruptive of the options available to address the leadership crisis at City Hall, the president, Sonko, Senate Speaker Ken Lusaka, and Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa signed an agreement at State House, handing over the crucial functions of health, transport, public works and planning to the national government on February 25.
The president would then call in Jubilee Nairobi MCAs to State House, striking a deal with them regarding their bid to impeach the governor.
The transfer of functions would later be officiated on Wednesday, March 18 after the deed was sealed and Major General Mohammed Abdallah Badi was named as the Director-General of the NMS, deputized by Enosh Momanyi.
Uhuru tasked the NMS with ensuring quality service delivery to Nairobians and eradicating corruption that has permeated City Hall.
The governor has been the talk lately after he refused to assent to the Ksh15 billion which was allocated to the Nairobi Metropolitan Services by the County Assembly of Nairobi on April 2, 2020.
Sonko had been alerted of the allocation of the funds through the Nairobi City County Supplementary Appropriations Bill but had yet to assent to the bill.
