A group of about 70 Nairobi MCAs on Thursday converged at a hotel in Kwale county where they declared they will not take part in Thursday afternoon’s assembly session.
The session was to be used to vote on an impeachment motion against Governor Mike Sonko.
Nairobi county assembly minority leader Michael Ogada tabled the motion.
“We will not accept anything of that sort,” said Waithaka MCA Anthony Karanja.
He led the MCAs in recording statements at the Kwale police station over the alleged hacking of their Zoom account.
The MCAs alleged the virtual voting system has been rigged, adding they have been logged in to the system despite switching their phones off.
For the motion to pass, at least 82 votes from the 122 MCAs in the assembly are needed.
“Those 20 MCAs who have remained in Nairobi cannot tell us that they will impeach the governor. How will they do that? They don’t have the numbers,” said Karanja.
Karura MCA Joseph Wambugu said contrary to how he has been painted, Sonko has no war with the Nairobi Metropolitan Service.
The MCAs said majority of those who are fighting Sonko had been benefitting from a "rogue" leadership in the county government.
“After this impeachment motion fails, we will deal with those behind it,” said Wambugu.
The MCAs said they are not puppets.
At the centre of the motion is the budget
“It may take one or five years, but the illegality that you are doing must stop..."
“Some of us may not like the governor at a personal level. But this should not mean that you try to remove him from office,” said Wambugu.
Ngado MCA Peter Wahinya said no one in his ward has sent him, as their representative in the assembly, to impeach Sonko.
“Somebody who has been elected by over 800,000 people in Nairobi cannot be impeached by a few people in the assembly who want to benefit their own stomachs,” said Wahinya.
Millicent Jagero, a Jubilee nominated MCA, said after the motion flops, they will remove those behind it from their offices.
The MCAs denied reports that they were coerced into supporting Sonko.
They said the whole motion has been instigated by the refusal to pass the county’s budget by Sonko.
Nominated MCA Sylvia Museiya said MCAs are adults who can make independent choices.
“We came of our own volition. I am willing to pay the price of being straight forward,” said Museiya.
Nicholas Okumu, the Lower Savannah MCA, said he was not voted to impeach Sonko because the people the he represents also voted for Sonko.
Clarence Munga, the Kabira MCA, said the biggest issue is that those functions that had been transferred to NMS had been budgeted for while those that were left behind had not.