How Ruto, Raila arrested Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja ouster plan

With the plot looking ominous after 87 ward representatives appended their signatures to the ouster bid, a politically shaken Sakaja sought the help of former Westlands MP Fred Gumo and Suna East MP Junet Mohamed, a close confidant of Mr Odinga, to reach out to the former premier to save him from the looming removal from office.

Mr Sakaja, who promised to make Nairobi work during the 2022 election campaigns, stands accused of leaving the city to stink and rot, incompetence, corruption, delaying bursary disbursements, stalling ward projects, illegal evictions, and non-payment of contractors.

The first-time governor, who has also been accused of being inaccessible, was suddenly reachable and available for the meetings as he intensely lobbied, and put up a spirited fight for his political survival.

However, it took a series of meetings for the county legislators to be prevailed upon to save Mr Sakaja the ignominy of being the fourth governor to be impeached since the 2022 elections.

Mr Odinga, who has been meeting the Nairobi County Assembly leadership since last week, pleaded with the MCAs to put the impeachment motion on hold to give Mr Sakaja time to fix the mess in his administration.

A similar message also came from State House where the president asked his lieutenants to give the governor two months to put his “house” in order.

“The impeachment has not been withdrawn; we have agreed that the impeachment still stays, only that we are not going to table it immediately. If the issues that we raised are not addressed in those 60 days, then we will table the motion,” said South B MCA Waithera Chege, who also doubles up as deputy minority leader.

As part of the temporary truce, the President will today (Wednesday) hold another meeting with the MCAs in the presence of Mr Sakaja, who was not invited to Tuesday’s meeting.

60 days

“In the meeting, we will once again lay out the issues we need addressed by the governor within the 60 days. If he does not implement them, we will revive the motion because it is still alive,” Ms Chege said.

At the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation Centre, Mr Odinga managed to convince his party members to temporarily drop the impeachment plans and give the governor time to address their grievances.

Makadara MP George Aladwa, who addressed the media after the meeting that lasted for about three hours, stated that it was in the interest of Nairobi residents that the MCAs agreed to give the governor more time.

“In our meeting, each party addressed its issues and we listened to everyone. In the end, we all agreed that the pending impeachment motion should be withdrawn and allow the governor to continue with his work,” Mr Aladwa said.

“No one has been forced to make such decisions; they had time to speak. The governor was given time to also address his issues and he apologised to MCAs. We will address the matter again in the next one month. We want Nairobi County to be clean without dramas.”

However, a section of MCAs expressed their disappointment with Mr Odinga, saying that they don’t have faith in the governor.

Led by Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai, the ward representatives said while they respected the advice from their party leader, the move might pit them against residents, in the event that the governor fails to address the grievances.

Impeachment plot 

Attempts to have the MCAs go slow on the impeachment plot began Friday last week in a meeting chaired by Mr Odinga at his Karen residence and only involving ODM leadership in the assembly.

However, the several hours-long meeting hit a political brick wall, as signature collection gathered steam

On Monday, Mr Odinga expanded the meeting to include the minority leadership, with Mr Junet and Mr Gumo also present.

The meeting held at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation in Upper Hill, Nairobi also suffered a similar fate as the Friday one despite going on for hours up to 10pm.

“He (Raila) wanted to understand what is going on in Nairobi and the impeachment plan. We told him we have had several meetings with the governor and nothing has ever been implemented. We laid down our issues and Baba was prevailing upon us to give Sakaja more time,” said Ms Chege of the Monday meeting.

“But we told him the motion is driven by members and not the leadership and so we don’t have the power to tell them to drop the motion.”

The South B MCA added that they told Mr Odinga to respect the independence of the county assembly and allow the MCAs to do their work according to the Constitution, but the ODM leader was of the opinion that the ward representatives do not proceed with the ouster plan.

In response, the former premier said he will call for a meeting of all ODM MCAs and listen to them, while President Ruto will meet his UDA brigade, a move that culminated in Tuesday's twin meetings.

“We were also pleading with Raila that we need him because we need the numbers to send Sakaja home. So when he called, we wanted him to confirm that the direction of ODM will not interfere with the plan,” said Ms Chege.

“ODM is the majority and the speaker is also from the party, and that is why we thought the meeting would be able to convince Raila to be on our side.”

The meeting agreed that the MCAs write down their issues in the presence of Mr Odinga’s private secretary and Mr Sakaja.

“Our issues are very specific, but he (Sakaja) has not been listening to us. He should be giving us specific answers why Nairobi residents cannot get bursaries, for example. We are not speaking about personal issues,” she said.

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