As floods take lives of residents of Nairobi, and the garbage menace defines almost every estate, former Nairobi Governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko says the regime that succeeded him is a national disaster.
The regime that he talks about is, at least in the electoral sense, is led by Johnson Sakaja. And he has his reasons. In an interview with You-Tuber Andrew Kibe, Sonko says graft is the main driving factor for the troubles of Nairobians.
It was from Rwanda that, he says, he borrowed the leaf of involving city residents in cleaning drainages ahead of the log rains.
“The entry and exit points of the city determine the cleanliness of the city, that is why I planted flowers from the airport all the way to Kangemi before the expressway,”.
On the current floods in the city, the former governor describes it as a national disaster. He says that there were no deaths during his tenure, unlike what is being witnessed at the moment.
“The floods are all over and I cannot blame the governor but I cannot defend him as such. I correct him when things go wrong. During my time people used to criticise me. That is a common thing in politics,” he said.
He said his impromptu visits to hospitals at night helped him fix the dilapidated states of some county hospitals.
In the lengthy conversation, the former county boss claimed that at one point in time, some staff in revenue collection unit took to him a Sh50 million bribe from the daily collections.
This, he claimed, shocked him and enlightened him on how the city was making millions in revenue collections every day.
“I realised that the county was making a lot of money but much was getting lost to corruption, so I went to report it at State House. I only didn’t know I was going to dig my own grave. I had given them the clearest hint that Nairobi had money, and later State House came after me,” he said.
In the conversation, Sonko claimed the county could make up to Sh300 million daily collections but only about Sh50 million would end up in the official accounts, with the rest getting looted.
After taking the evidence to the State House, he said, a plot was hatched to set a trap to arrest the people behind the looting and he got reinforced by an intelligence unit to get the perpetrators in action.
He said a trap was then laid to arrest the City Hall officers behind the scheme and, eventually, they were caught in action by the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) and DCI officers.
“I was trying to help fight corruption but I still don’t understand how things turned around and my status tainted as the most corrupt leading to my impeachment,” He said.
