2020 IN SCOPE: HOW SONKO ENDED HIS POLITICAL CAREER

 

I still maintain that Mike Sonko killed his own career and not the so-called “deep state” that has become part and parcel of our politics. The reasons are two-fold, one is his own personality and two is the Nairobi Metropolitan Services.

Sonko is a man any ordinary person can relate to. He came from extreme poverty to make a fortune whatever the means and still make a name and a brand in politics. He was the only candidate to get more votes in 2013 and 2017 outside the two major presidential candidates, a record no other candidate has ever managed to beat until 2022. However, what makes him great is also his major Achilles heel.

His trust issues saw him record phone calls and even put his superiors like the president on a full speaker at one time in a bid to stop demolitions. His bellicose nature has seen him engage in dramatic activities in the past like punching walls, insulting his opponents, and even engage in a fistfight with his predecessor Evans Kidero when he was on a committee that was investigating him. The blogs around town have had a field day reporting about his discretions with women of questionable character and he has been calling them gutter press too. For every fight, there was a fightback, every kick a kickback. You could see the vintage Sonko on full display when he lashed out in fury.

However, that is a small part of the larger scheme of things that ended with his humiliating impeachment. When he signed over his four duties to the newly created NMS that was the clear sign that he would not finish the year as governor. This very act rendered his office moribund because he could not plan, collect revenue, and run the city on a day-to-day basis because the army man was to do that. Although he claimed that he was drunk when signing over his duties, many believe that it was a move to relieve the pressure on him thanks to the corruption cases that have been leveled against him by the DPP and DCI.

That move was a temporary reprieve, but then when he realized that he was made a lame-duck governor, he lashed out at the man he called “Saddam Hussein” on his official Facebook pages but to no avail. The general carried on without even bothering to reply to his insults and when the annual budget hearing came, he chose to stall and thereby triggering his impeachment. He did underestimate the man who had taken over from the soft-spoken Beatrice Elachi as County Speaker because he did what she couldn’t do: kick him out of office. Granted, the system came in handy to ensure that he did not impede the process like when he tried to take half of the assembly on a trip to deny quorum to his impeachment hearing.

When all is said and done, 2020 is the year that finally ended Sonko’s dream of becoming Commander-in-Chief and his re-entry into elective politics.