Kiambu County is one of the counties that is facing leadership crisis. The crisis started when misunderstandings arose between the governor, Ferdinand Waititu and his deputy, James Nyoro. The deputy governor accused Waititu for not engaging him in the decision making of the county. This led to rise of different views both to the MCAs and the citizens of Kiambu.
Apart from misunderstandings among the two leaders, the governor was later charged with misuse of the office and graft cases. Ferdinand was arrested by the police following the orders of EACC, at his home Runda on May 23 2019. The governor was questioned by the EACC over his property acquisitions, including that of a building located within Nairobi’s central business district. The investigations included some county officers and even the family members.
Due to this, the county assembly wanted to impeach the governor but it was not successful. The MCAs to a step of registering the interests of people of Kiambu but it was dismissed by the judge, Justice Onyiego. Waititu has been fighting his impeachment.
Waititu was given a chance by the senate to prove he is not guilty. He pleaded with the senators to do to him what they would like to be done to them but his plea fell on deaf ears where the senate voted for his impeachment yesterday. 27 senators voted for Waititu to be impeached and 12 voted against. The same pattern was repeated on the third count of gross misconduct.
Waititu was not satisfied with this decision by the senators and he sued the senate, Kiambu county assembly, speakers of the two houses as well as his deputy governor. He claimed that his impeachment by kiambu assembly was passed by 57 members which are below the required threshold of 62. He wants the swearing of his deputy to be halted and implementation of the senate resolution suspended. The swearing in of James Nyoro has been gazette by Lusaka.
The court decision is awaited so as the next step can be carried on. The county has been facing this leadership wrangles like the Nairobi county.
Rwaithira 