Sonko should be made to pay for his confessed crimes first, fast

By MYLES LEO

Kenya has its problems. And they are many.

But the biggest economy in the East African region finds a way for her citizens and visitors to relieve their stress, comically. One of the ways for those pushed up and down by the economic and social problems lie, strangely, in the people Kenyans, at one point or another, choose as their leaders, political leaders.

For those who have been around the block, the country’s political scene is, and has been for about a decade actually, a comedy theatre. One of the main actors in one of the longest series of comedies is Gideon Kioko Mbuvi.

Mr Mbuvi is a self-declared convict who engineered a prison break at some point, got into some not so legal business before he “reformed” and sought a political leadership office. And with the reformation, came a change of names. He replaced Gideon with Mike, removed Kioko from the list and added Sonko. Mike Mbuvi Sonko was elected a Nairobi City constituency MP, the Capital County’s Senator and eventually the Eastern African biggest business capital city’s governor, all in twelve years.

A combination of natural and man-made factors have, however, somehow connived to remove him from office though.

But Mike is drama and drama is Mike.

At one point when he was the city county’s chief executive officer (CEO), Mike Sonko recorded a video of himself as he chewed khat, listened and danced to some rhumba music and listened to the problems of his subjects in his office and shared the video live on social media. When he was senator, Sonko travelled to the Hague in the Netherlands, sprawled himself in the middle of a busy street as he led a demonstration against an International Criminal Court case.

At another point, Sonko the MP took pictures of himself in a compromising position with a married female fellow legislator and shared it on social media. The immediate former governor is himself a married man with grown children.

The comedy Mike Sonko stages is quite good comic relief and one wishes it would stay just as that.

But it does not.

It ceases to be funny when the governor of the country’s topmost county starts alluding to matters life and death. It is not funny when he declares he was part of a plot to destroy private and public property and it becomes tragic when he says he was privy to schemes that lead to the death of a minister and his deputy in what was thought to be an accident not so long ago.

Just the other day, the man who still enjoys state security stood on a public forum and hurled verbal abuse to the head of state. President Uhuru Kenyatta, being the wise man he is, ignored him.

But Sonko did not stop.

Just last Sunday, Speaking in Dagoretti South, Sonko implicated himself and Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho in a hooliganism plot involving burning of vehicles, which the ex-county boss claimed was intended to paint ODM in bad light during the 2017 electoral period.

“We are now seeing the deep state burning cars to paint hustlers in bad light. I want to confess and say this; in 2017 when ODM was holding demonstrations in Nairobi, Kibicho, I and other members of the deep state printed ODM T-shirts and bought old second hand vehicles and burnt then along Ngong road to make it appear like the party was behind the move,” Sonko told a cheering crowd at an event covered by national media.

In the live audience were some Members of Parliament and other leaders. The Deputy President of Kenya, Dr William Ruto, was also present as Sonko “confessed”!

Of course, PS Kibicho, refuted the claims a few hours later saying “he had had enough of Sonko’s increasing wild claims”.

But every Kenyan knows vehicles were burnt in that period and many would like to know who did it. This is, by no means, a laughing matter.

And now the PS is breathing fire. And rightly so for Sonko has said so much about him and others that if any of it is true, he ought to be in prison and not the office that oversees the implementation and maintenance of law and order.

Otherwise, how would anyone explain the fact that Sonko says Kibicho was involved in the death of former Interior Minister George Saitoti and his deputy Orwa Ojode who died in a plane incident in the year 2012?

Sonko has also claimed that both his life and that of the Deputy President are in danger because of their political standing.

It is time the country stopped playing games with national security, politics or no politics. Because Sonko is adamant that he has evidence to support his claims, he must be compelled to provide them now. The allegations he is making are too grave to be dismissed as rantings of a jilted lover.

Having confessed that he was involved in a criminal act, the former governor should be made ‘to help police with investigations” even before Kibicho and company file their own complains over the character assassinations cases.

Otherwise the comedy is turning tragic very fast.

Mr Leo is a public policy analyst. [email protected]