Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja intimated that he was forced to see President Uhuru Kenyatta and ensure that roads in Nairobi were upgraded.
Speaking during a sit-down during Jeff Koinange's JKLive on Citizen TV on Wednesday, January 23, Sakaja told Koinange that after seeing the dire conditions of roads in Nairobi, he took it upon himself to make a change.
He narrated that he walked up to President Kenyatta to ask for finances to help alleviate the problems faced by commuters in the city.
"I'm glad that I was able to secure Ksh1.7 billion for roads all across Nairobi, and that is roads in Eastlands and the western part of Nairobi. Sometimes we focus so much on the western part as compared to the rest of Nairobi," he narrated.
While he admitted that he had no jurisdiction to do that, he stated that his position of influence compelled him to face the president and convince him to remedy the situation.
"Leadership is not a position. It is influence. I am glad that I was able to just tell the president that the issue is really terrible and people were not moving in the city.
"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. That is not ideally what a senator should be doing, but we have to get over such leadership confines," Sakaja defended his decision.
He intimated that it was after meeting Kenyatta that the funds were released, and he summoned all Nairobi MPs to identify the problem areas and institute the necessary remedies.
"We were able to sit down and still are sitting down with Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA). I have also summoned the MPs to tell me the worst-hit places in the 17 constituencies so that we can allocate part of the Ksh1.7 billion to the roads that have been affected," he stated.
Sakaja blamed the dire infrastructure problems on systemic negligence from the county leadership and urged it to offload some responsibilities to the national government or seek help in fulfilling their mandate if need be.
"If the county is having challenges with some of these sectors, the constitution provides that they can transfer some of these functions to the national government or partner in a way that the county and national roads are being done at the same time," he concluded.
Video Courtesy of Citizen TV Twitter...
