MCAs Open Fresh Bid to Impeach Sakaja, Brand Governor ‘Incapable’ After Humiliating State House Deal

NAIROBI, Kenya — The ink on Governor Johnson Sakaja’s deal with the national government had barely dried before Nairobi’s ward representatives were sharpening their knives, with a fresh impeachment motion gathering speed on the streets of the capital and threatening to blow City Hall apart.

What was supposed to be a political triumph for the embattled first-term governor has spectacularly backfired. The cooperation agreement signed at State House on Tuesday — hailed by Sakaja as “the best thing to have happened to Nairobi” — has instead handed his enemies the very weapon they needed to finally bring him down.

For Members of County Assembly who have long stewed in frustration over broken promises, stalled projects, and delayed bursaries, the Sh80 billion deal is not a lifeline for Nairobi. It is a confession. A damning, public admission, they argue, that Johnson Sakaja cannot run Kenya’s capital.

Resign or Be Removed

South B MCA and Deputy Minority Leader Waithera Chege was blunt, unsparing, and unambiguous. “We are telling the governor to either resign or be impeached. He needs to choose one. I have personally put my signature on the new impeachment motion. It is because of his incompetence that we are in this situation,” she said.

Ms Chege’s verdict carried the cold certainty of someone who has already made up her mind. She was not issuing a warning. She was announcing an outcome. “The reason why the national government has come on board is because of his failure to understand what he is supposed to do and why he was elected by Nairobi people,” she said.

Kileleshwa Ward MCA Robert Alai, never a man known for restraint, was equally devastating. “We feel the governor is too incompetent and even if you give him 1,000 years, he will not change the city. He does not have the capacity to run the capital city,” said Mr Alai, who confirmed that as of Tuesday, more than 55 MCAs had already appended their signatures to a fresh ouster motion.

Robert Alai

A Governor on Borrowed Time

Sakaja’s predicament has been months in the making. Talks for State House to take a greater role in the management of Nairobi began in November last year, just weeks after President William Ruto and the late ODM leader Raila Odinga staged a dramatic joint intervention to spare the governor from his first impeachment crisis in September 2025.

At the time, 87 of 123 MCAs had already signed onto the ouster motion, far exceeding the one-third threshold of 41 signatures required by the Nairobi County Assembly Standing Orders for an impeachment motion to be tabled. That the motion was pulled back owed nothing to any sudden outbreak of confidence in the governor, and everything to raw political muscle from the very top.

But the deal that saved him also diminished him. Sakaja was given 60 days to fix bursary disbursements, address corruption claims, resolve stalled ward projects, release ward development funds, and restore street lighting. Multiple MCAs now say those promises were not kept.

Baba Dogo MCA Geoffrey Majiwa put it plainly. “We are going on with the signature collection because the governor has not implemented what we agreed upon last year when we shelved the impeachment bid,” he said.

The Sh80 Billion Deal That Became a Liability

On Tuesday, February 17, Governor Sakaja stood alongside Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi at State House and signed a cooperation agreement transferring key county functions to the national government. The deal, witnessed by President Ruto, covers water and sewerage, roads and drainage, housing and infrastructure, solid waste management, and the regeneration of Nairobi’s rivers. It unlocks Sh80 billion for the capital.

President Ruto described it as a necessary intervention for a city that must “meet the highest standards of order, infrastructure, efficiency, and service delivery” not only for its residents but for Kenya as a whole. The governor, for his part, pointed to the legal basis for the arrangement under Section 6 of the Urban Areas and Cities Act, 2012, and asked critics where else he was supposed to find Sh80 billion.

“I have no regrets at all. It was in the interest of the people. Where would I have gotten this amount from? Do I pontificate or get my people what they want?” Sakaja told journalists.

But the MCAs are unmoved by the arithmetic. To them, the deal does not represent resourcefulness. It represents surrender. And the court agrees the matter deserves urgent scrutiny: the High Court certified as urgent a petition filed on February 18 challenging the legality of the agreement, with the main hearing set for March 16, 2026.

The ODM Fracture and the Weakening Political Shield

The governor’s political exposure has grown since September. He was elected on President Ruto’s UDA party ticket in 2022, yet the majority in the Nairobi County Assembly belongs to ODM. The September reprieve hinged on Raila Odinga’s intervention. But Odinga died in October 2025, and ODM is now split between a faction loyal to Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna and another aligned with Siaya Senator Oburu Oginga.

Senator Sifuna, who has already dismissed the State House cooperation deal as unconstitutional and declared that Sakaja had effectively become “the new Deputy Governor” of his own county, now has no particular political incentive to throw the governor a lifeline.

An MCA who spoke anonymously added a cutting observation about the governor’s management style. “The governor is still accessible as he is always at Riverside. He only works with a clique of MCAs including the Budget Committee chairperson and the Majority Leader,” the source said.

Ms Chege framed the isolation starkly. “How come everyone is against you? Every other MCA apart from less than five out of the 85 wards are complaining. I don’t know what happened to the governor. I don’t think he is in charge,” she said.

Sakaja Plays It Cool

For now, the governor is playing a dangerous game of studied nonchalance. Asked about the fresh impeachment bid, Sakaja claimed ignorance. “How do I respond to what I have not seen? I am not aware of any such plans,” he said.

The bravado may be ill-timed. Embakasi North MP James Gakuya, who has his own eyes on the Nairobi governorship in 2027, dismissed the impeachment threat as dead on arrival, arguing President Ruto’s deal was itself designed as a shield. “The impeachment of Sakaja as governor before 2027 is impossible because the route that President Ruto has taken is meant to redeem Sakaja from impeachment,” Gakuya told Kameme TV.

If Gakuya is right, then Sakaja’s salvation and his humiliation are one and the same thing. He survives only because the President has taken over. And if the MCAs have their way, that is precisely the reason he must go.