By The Weekly Vision Team
Barely two weeks after Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika was booed and heckled in front of President William Ruto, a plot has been hatched to oust her through impeachment by sections of Nakuru County Assembly MCAs. According to sources well-versed in this scheme, Nakuru Senator Tabitha Karanja is spearheading the political scheme to have Kihika sent packing. It is still not known if the UDA top brass has okayed her planned removal or not, but sources have revealed that a section of President William Ruto’s allies is also secretly supporting an attempt to impeach the governor.
Should the process succeed, then Kihika’s deputy governor, David Kones, will be elevated to the governorship. Sources say MCAs allied to the UDA from Kuresoi South and North are solidly behind the impeachment. The two constituencies have seven elected MCAs. During the last elections, the UDA party won the majority of seats, with ODM winning 2 and the Jubilee Party winning 5 seats.
The senator has now come out in public to declare her support for Kihika’s impeachment and has also given reasons for it. From the onset, the senator claims that Kihika has no respect for fellow elected leaders and uses her perceived closeness to President William Ruto to intimidate and threaten other elected leaders. The senator claims that Kihika has never been comfortable with her playing her oversight role and has publicly declared that she is not ready for any reconciliation talks with the senator.
During a press conference, the senator described Kihika as inhumane and someone who has no respect for the rule of law. It has been discovered that the senator and the governor fell out following Kijika’s interest in the Nakuru War Memorial Hospital land, in which she is being accused of having a personal interest.
It is being whispered that, through Kihika’s orders, the Nakuru County Government forcefully and in disregard of the law took over the Nakuru War Memorial Hospital, which has led to disruptions in the provision of health services. She is alleged to have also used her influence to have police arrest people she perceived to be opposed to the takeover.
During the takeover, Kihika is alleged to have given further orders to the county askaris to evacuate all the patients and staff at the hospital. The MCAs are now claiming that Kihika had also sacked over 500 workers at various health facilities, including nurses and doctors, and replaced them with non-qualified staff. The MCAs pushing for Kihika’s impeachment claim that due to her management style, county hospitals are in a sorry state, with no medicine and medical staff working under threats and intimidation by the governor.
The planned impeachment is said to be a plot by the senator, former governor Lee Kinyanjui, and former Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri to cut Kihika to size ahead of the 2027 elections.
There have been whispers that Kinyanjui has been contemplating mending fences with Ruto and UDA to jump ship and reclaim his seat, which he lost to Kihika. It is not known if that would come to pass because there are also speculations that the senator is also interested in the governor’s seat in 2027.
