Nairobi governor Mike Sonko ha been impeached by the Nairobi County Assembly.
This is after 88 members out of 122 voted in favour of the ouster motion.
20 members of the county assembly abstained whille two opposed the motion.
Governor Mike Sonko had earlier filed a petition at the High Court to stop the impeachment arguing that it was illegal and unconstitutional.
Justice James Rika ruled that Sonko will be prejudiced if he is impeached before his case is determined. Despite this ruling, the impeachment proceeded.
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The motion which needed at least 82 Members of County Assembly to vote in favour of the impeachment was chaired by speaker Benson Mutura.
As this happened over 40 MCA’s allied to Sonko who were holed up in Diani said they were logged into the county assembly’s system even when their mobile phones were off.
They said it was a ‘fraud’ as they were logged into the county assembly’s e-voting system and voted for Sonko’s impeachment against their wish.
Governor Sonko had been working behind the scenes to sabotage the impeachment and had flown the MCAs to the Coast to strategize on how to defeat the motion.
According to the Standard, the idea was to deny the Assembly a crucial two-thirds majority vote.
However, the move flopped as 58 MCAs were present in the chambers with others logging in virtually.
The House needed 42 MCAs to achieve a quorum.
Some of the things that Sonko is accused of are:
- Misuse of office and inability to run the county government.
- Failure to approve a Sh37.4 billion budget to facilitate the operations undertaken by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS).
- Irregular awarding of a Sh1.5 billion tender for construction of stadia, among them Dandora Stadium.
The motion to remove Sonko from office was moved by Minority Leader Michael Ogada.
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