Elachi says Sonko behind latest push to impeach her as Speaker

Nairobi County Assembly Speaker Beatrice Elachi has accused Governor Mike Sonko of being behind the latest push by MCAs to remove her from office.

At the same time, MCAs allied to the Speaker have vowed to restart a new push to remove Sonko from office.

Speaker Elachi alleged that her woes are linked to her battle with clerk Jacob Ngwele and her stand on Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) which the governor is embroiled in a war with.

Ms Elachi pointed out that the MCAs who now want to impeach her are those who are allied to Sonko and who are opposed to NMS for having sealed all cash leakages at the county.

She further accused Sonko and Mr Ngwele of teaming up to frustrate her as she has stood her ground that the latter is not the assembly’s substantive clerk and also for calling out the governor in his attempts to frustrate operations of NMS.

NGWELE’S RETURN

The Nairobi Speaker alleged that the governor has a hidden hand in the return of Mr Ngwele so that he can forestall his pending impeachment that had been initiated by MCAs but halted by a court.

“Sonko knows that there is a new clerk who was recently sworn in and he knows that his impeachment can come out of the court now and that is the war he has with me,” said Ms Elachi.

“He has been using Ngwele in all his cases in court and right now he is very angry because he knows the order that stopped his ouster can be revived now that Ngwele is gone. The impeachment motion is motivated by that,” she added.

COLLECTED SIGNATURES

On Sunday, MCAs drawn from both sides of the political divide announced their renewed push to impeach Ms Elachi saying that they have already collected 51 signatures in support of the ouster motion.

The ward representatives accused her of abuse of office, illegal appointment of new assembly clerk, corruption, poor leadership, victimisation of MCAs and assembly staff, disregard of the law and county orders and militarisation of the assembly.

But MCAs allied to the Speaker led by Minority Whip Peter Imwatok have insisted that it is Sonko who will be the first one to be ousted.

Embakasi MCA Michael Ogada said they will restart the process of removing Sonko from office after the previous bid was stopped by the State.

REMOVE SONKO

“We want to remind Sonko that he is not going to impeach Elachi. We sponsored his motion to be removed but we are going to get back to that and remove him because he is a failure. We are going to start the process tomorrow (Tuesday),” said Mr Ogada.

The ODM MCA asked the State not to interfere this time round and allow the ward representatives to “do their work”.

“We don’t want to be called to stop impeaching Sonko. Instead of impeaching Elachi, it will be another story as we will be impeaching Sonko,” he said.

Kayole Central MCA Jeremiah Karani said Ms Elachi is going nowhere as they are the ones who elected her as their Speaker.

When reached for comment, Sonko’s spokesman Ben Mulwa asked Ms Elachi not to hang on the governor over her woes with MCAs.

“She must be out of her mind to drag the governor into her impeachment. The MCAs have themselves been complaining of how she has been running the assembly,” he said.

Mr Mulwa also dismissed the new push to impeach Governor Sonko.

“Those are sideshows by individuals looking for relevance and who want to divert the public from the real issues,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ms Elachi has defended the recent appointment and gazettement of a new clerk, reiterating that Mr Ngwele has been in office illegally ever since he resigned from Parliament, adding that the matter is now a foregone case as Mr Edward Gichana is now the substantive clerk.

“Where is Ngwele’s gazettement and where is his oath of office if at all he was procedurally appointed as the clerk of the county assembly? The court gave the assembly 45 days to recruit a new clerk following due procedure and that is what we have done,” Ms Elachi said.