Sakaja faces ouster bid as MCAs table 20 charges

Nairobi Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) have said they will press about 20 charges against Governor Johnson Sakaja in a bid to oust him from office.

According to the MCAs, the key charges include corruption, misuse of public funds, misconduct, and failure to fulfil promises made to city residents in the run-up to the 2022 elections.

Speaking at City Hall on the second day of collecting signatures in support of the impeachment motion, the ward representatives said their past attempts to reach out to Sakaja over development issues had fallen on deaf ears.

“We have been trying to highlight the problems, but he has been making excuses, including saying that he is busy and unable to solve them,” Kilimani MCA Robert Alai stated.

The MCAs said that by Monday, they had secured enough signatures, terming the grounds to impeach the governor substantive, and insisted that no one was influencing them.

They alleged that Sakaja’s administration had been marred by corruption, particularly in the implementation of the county’s school feeding programme.

Kiamaiko MCA Joseph Ndung’u questioned the transparency of the initiative, asking: “Where are the five shillings that parents are paying for the county’s school meals going?”

Currently, the Nairobi County Assembly has 122 members, and according to the ward representatives who attended Monday’s meeting, about 100 had backed the impeachment process.

Roysambu MCA Sospeter Mumbi claimed that in impeaching the governor, they were simply exercising their roles of representation, oversight, and legislation.

“We are not the people who do the roads, buy medical facilities, or provide bursaries. This is the mandate of the Executive, and as the representatives of the people, we have assumed our mandate and ensured the concerns of city residents have reached the relevant desks of the Executive,” he stated.

Mumbi echoed Alai, describing Sakaja as an “unresponsive leader who ignores their written reminders”, adding that when they allocate budgets for bursaries, they are not realised.

“When we approve budgets for infrastructure, the roads are not done. And when we allocate money for Ward Development Funds, contractors are not being paid, leaving us MCAs to carry the burden of the Executive,” said Mumbi.

Once the signature collection is concluded, the MCAs said they would request the Speaker of the Assembly, Kennedy Ng’ondi, to call a special sitting since they are currently in recess.

“It is not about us but the interests of Nairobi residents. In my ward, for instance, there were demonstrations by residents protesting over poor roads. When I reached out to the Executive, there was no response,” added Mumbi.