We know that Johnson Sakaja, the Nairobi County Governor has been given warnings to follow tribalist instructions from DP Gachagua who threatened to summon him to his office, maybe to give him a whipping to follow orders.
While we wait for the results of that disciplinary action, the Nairobi County MCAs today walked out on a vetting process for the county ICT and Energy CEC Lucky Ogutu Okudo, making all sorts of claims but making it pretty obvious that the UDA war against their own guy who won the governor’s job in Nairobi is just beginning.
Addressing the media on Thursday, Kileleshwa MCA, Robert Alai claimed his colleagues had a clear motive for the vetting process.
“Their true intentions were something else. It is not because there was an illegality, they had clear instructions to ensure the nominee is not vetted,” he said.
Led by minority leader Antony Kiragu, the UDA allied side of the house said they will not take part in an illegality.
They said that they questioned the nominee’s morals and her credibility.
He revealed that the nominee as of December 21, 2022, had not submitted the required papers as announced by the clerk.
However, Alai who is the ICT chairperson said the nominee was still within the time frame of submitting the documents.
“We have not seen an illegality because the nominee has been in communication with the clerk until Wednesday evening,” he said.
Majority whip Moses Ogeto defending the nominee said the problem was with the office of the clerk which failed to receive Ogutu’s document.
“The nominee had no problem as she submitted her documents and even carried original copies today,” he said.
Instead of walking out, the Kileleshwa MCA opted that his counterparts from Kenya Kwanza could have sat down through the vetting process and explained their case.
In addition, Alai said the UDA MCAs were being very unfair by judging a nominee based on her employer.
“It is wrong to say that just because the nominee is associated with a presidential candidate who lost in the elections. We need to judge people based on their credibility and competency but not their choice of association,” he said.
However, the ICT chairman said that the decision on whether the nominee will be approved depends on the committee.
“In reality the decision to approve or reject the nominee depends on all the 23 committee members. So the UDA MCAs have until Friday to present their case on the nominee,” Alai said.
Also Sakaja’s nominee as CEC for Finance, Isha Abdi faced a lot of problems.
Vetting is important for all nominees both at the county and national level but there seems to be so much politics in the vetting process that makes them be political boxing marches.
UDA has a person charged with murder and corruption nominated as a CS and they not only just hand her the job, they actually come back and get all the charges including videotaped murder wiped out of the books. She is now a witness to the murder which means if you kill someone you can go to court and say you are a witness to the murder because you actually saw it as you were doing it.
The Sakaja case is going to be a big problem for the UDA tribalists. The governor is supposed to run the Nairobi County in the UDA revenge mode against their political opponents and this Sakaja guy is not following the script. After all, he is running a county where his own political group UDA has minority MCAs and so the governor is trying to be practical and realistic.
That is a foreign language to UDA but they will have to learn it and speak it not only in Nairobi but all over Kenya. Once Kenyans are done with elections they often prefer to do sensible and practical things. Kenyans actually never live in that revenge land that some politicians cling to all their lives. UDA will have to learn that the hard way if necessary.
