Impeached Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has clapped back at President Uhuru Kenyatta for criticising him and his leadership while at the helm of City Hall.  

Sonko instead referred to President Kenyatta as “a failed President with nothing to show for eight years in power” in response to his bashing earlier Monday.

Kenyatta admitted in a radio interview on Monday morning that he plotted Sonko’s ouster from office terming his leadership style as confrontational.

In his remarks spoken in his native Agikuyu language and aired on local Kikuyu stations, the president said Sonko’s combative style hampered service delivery.

Focus on failures  

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Irked by the bashing, Sonko hit back at the Head of State on Monday afternoon instead telling him to focus on the failures of his own Jubilee administration.

The former Nairobi city boss asked the president to admit to Kenyans that he was incompetent and that he had been unable to run the country as expected.

Sonko accused him of only prospering in holding Kenya’s independent institutions at ransom while niggling and distressing leaders who dared differ with him.

He said Kenyatta’s administration was synonymous with high unemployment, poverty, hopelessness and borrowing of more than Sh8 trillion shillings in 8 years.

Sonko further faulted Kenyatta for resorting to selling his handshake with ODM leader Raila Odinga and the resulting Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) referendum.

“It is therefore ridiculous for the President to allude to failure of any administration, yet he has presided over the worst administration in the history of Kenya. Indeed Chief Justice (retired) David Maraga was not wrong when he suggested that the President should have been impeached by now,” he said in a statement.

More votes

He also dismissed the president’s assertion that he made him the governor in the 2017 General Election, bragging that he got more votes in the city than Kenyatta.

“What the President will never tell Kenyans is that his selfish family agenda was the motivation behind my illegal and hurried removal from office,” claimed Sonko.

He however defended his short-lived tenure at City Hall saying he dealt with city cartels, sealed all revenue theft loopholes, and improved services to Nairobians.

He boasted of overseeing building of 140km of roads in Nairobi in two years, three new fire stations, and upgrading of Pumwani Hospital among others.

“I am extremely proud of my achievements in the first two years, before the cartels from State House and the President’s family hatched a scheme to disrupt my administration by endless summonses by their puppet EACC, culminating in my dramatic arrest on December 6, 2019 over frivolous allegations,” Sonko said.

He further had issue with Kenyatta addressing the Kikuyu nation in mother-tongue to the exclusion of other Kenyans despite being a symbol of national unity.

“It is shameful for a sitting president to lie to a Section of Kenyans through his native language, in the hope that other communities will never understand what he said,” he added in the long rant.