Nairobi, Kenya: The Capital City of Nairobi is under siege. It is the County Government No. 47, in accordance with the Schedule One of the Constitution of Kenya (2010). Many players and/or spoilers are in the crime scene.

From the national government overreaching into the county government; or even within the ward levels of governance through the Members of the County Assembly (MCAs); and finally, there are some few regional and international private actors. Some of these forces are very influential, but most of them are not the determinant of Nairobi’s future. 

In our local Maasai language, the etymological word, “Eee-Nyarobi”, means “the land of cool waters.” However, from the recent political, social and economic escapades, the Capital City of Nairobi is being betrayed.

Not by outsiders, but by some powerful forces of domination within itself, and of itself. These forces are located within and outside the governmental (public) and non-governmental (private) structures and systems of governance.

There is an adage that is said: “Nairobi has its owners” (Nairobi ina wenyewe): As a person born in, raised in, schooled in, and belonging in the City of Nairobi, the details are evident: I think I am one of those who deserve the title: “Nairobi has its owners”.

However, when used, the phrase “Nairobi has its owners”, has colloquially meant some “big fat cats” (many of who come from the other “village” Counties) who thrive on stealing money from City Hall with mostly unwarranted and undeserved government tenders! 

But today, let it be known that there is “Betrayal in the City”! Therefore, let no “villager” try and dethrone those born and bred in Nairobi, unless they belong as I do: in the colloquially–termed KaNairo. Having been born, raised, schooled and stayed in Nairobi for over half a century, I have the quo warranto (the right to speak) about KaNairo and therefore be allowed to state from the rooftops that there is indeed “Betrayal in the City”!

First, it is the national government, or the so-called “broad-based government” who are indeed attacking devolution, based on lies that the government and the opposition are working together, yet they are at parlance in every aspect.

Second, and without doubt, are often the secretive operatives within the same State-machinery (so-called, “deep state”), and some of these fellows are the people who bear the colloquial title Nairobi ina wenyewe.

Third, and final, are the so-called rag-tag militia unleashing all forms of political, social and economic violence on each and everyone, regardless of the life or status you think you have acquired for yourself and/or your family. They are the reigning terror currently by disturbing, stealing, and harming everyone using all manner of ‘weapons’ including human waste!

Welcome to Nairobi: in the so-called; the City in the Sun! In the current imbroglio in Nairobi, one can only use works and words of literature to explain, by recalling a set book for most high school students in the 1990s. It is titled: Betrayal in the City, which was written by a revered Kenyan play-writer: the Late Francis Imbuga.

In the book, there were two (2) amazing characters where one (Mulili) represented the then of status quo and the other (Jasper) represented the anti-status quo. ‘Mulili’ was a very compromised person. He could sell anything, including his soul, to gain for himself and defend the status quo. 

Conversely, there was ‘Jasper’, who spoke against status quo, by appealing to the future about liberation. In the words of ‘Jasper’: “when the madness of an entire nation creeps into a solitary mind, it is not enough to say that someone is mad”. Throughout the last 30 plus years, those words echo in every heart about Kenya’s liberation that is being sought and what it represents.

Somewhat and somehow, most of the human rights defenders in Kenya appear like the ‘Jasper’, since they have been struggling to get rid of the ‘sins of a nation’, which are neither their making nor do they fathom the same at all. 

Historically, despite the dictatorial, reprehensible, and retrogressive regime of the KANU-Moi government then, we still did our literature assignments and also were examined on the same: unlike the current generation whose students were trying to play and act the Echoes of War in Nakuru but betrayed by the very State, which banned the play, written or created under a progressive Constitution of Kenya! 

Despite that, we still pride ourselves with a very progressive Constitution, and it took a whopping 15 years for the current government to realize that the Kenyan ‘Order of Rule of Law’, indeed changed!  Let us therefore demonstrate what systems are failing in this Republic of Kenya, whose one and only Capital City of Nairobi, is being betrayed by its very own. Welcome to KaNairo.

For the past 15 years, the present, and the future is dependent on devolution of power: not whimsical decisions by the executive of or in the national government! Kenya has two levels of government, not whether Ruto or Raila decide so, through their political programmes of NADCO, a memorandum of understanding, or other means.

Kenya remains a structure and system of government that was determined by what we promulgated on Friday, August 27, 2010. Any attempt to change the devolved structure of government, can and will only be possible through amending Article 255(1), which means that a public referendum conducted by the IEBC, will have to take place. This is a very uphill task for those who dare read this provision!

Therefore, whatever interventions that they have made or may make in the future to salvage the City of Nairobi, from the so-called “opposition figureheads”, which they seem to fear, will yield zero fruits.

They may politically and temporarily suspend the impeachment of the Governor Sakaja – the so-called unqualified character masquerading as the most brilliant person in KaNairo – but Ruto and Raila, have no guarantees in case of any more motions for impeachment are initiated any other time, before the upcoming November by-elections planned for Thursday, November 27, 2025, or even the Tuesday, August 10, 2027 General Election.

The MCAs, despite a huge number of over 80 directly-elected by the voters of the wards in Nairobi, were ‘cowed-in’, because of ‘political pressures’, and may I speculate ‘financial incentives’. The women representatives of the 17 constituencies have spoken, and their words are solid.

Sakaja is hanging on a thread of fate, just like all his predecessors; Kidero and Sonko, who were thrown out! Since, Nairobi iko na wenyewe. This time round. It is evident that the “big fat cats” will actually face the wrath of the Nairobi people. “We the People”, the Constitution of Kenya begins!

Back to “Betrayal in the City” by Imbuga, where ‘Mulili’ and ‘Jasper’ characters are acting about what Nairobi has now become. Trying to salvage Sakaja against the people is actually betraying the people, and playing with fire! Ruto and Raila are assuming that they are the Nairobi iko na wenyewe.

We have seen these two and their henchmen (rarely women) making weird statements about this City in the Sun! Born and raised in the villages that I know of, I humbly urge these characters to determine their own affairs in their “villages”– whether elected, appointed, and/or even supported by the so-called political luminaries! Let KaNairo belong to the people.

Connected to this, when a Member of the National Assembly (my misgivings aside about his character and his ideological predisposition), states that they have only God to protect their party tickets, then KaNairo is actually a “Betrayed City”.

But the people will decide who becomes their Governor. The November by-elections in Kenya are only a litmus paper test of the so-called ‘broad-based government’. 

As Kenyans approach the November by-elections, there are 24 seats in the National Assembly, the Senate and also Ward representatives to be filled. Predictably, based on the last opinion survey about the current government done in late May 2025, the views of the people about the current government have not changed. The people feel betrayed. That is my ‘banker’s cheque’ prediction; and it will be taken to the ballot!

Further, without a doubt, most people are fully aware of what money politics does to the ballot box decisions. And yes, money has been poured into Ka Nairo. This is not the first time.

Many of my age group remember that the same persons pouring money in 2025, did the same in 1992 through the outfit called “Youth for KANU” (YK92). However, the tide has shifted. People still feel betrayed, and since KaNairo people are smarter than these people think, they know that they may take the money, but may take their ballots elsewhere! 

This is a very disturbing subject. The security apparatus in Nairobi, beginning from the House on the Hill where the Commander-in-Chief resides; to the Central Police Station; and, downwards to the Vigilance House, has all manner of ‘security experts’ paid and hosted directly and indirectly by the all taxpayers of Kenya!

However, none of these experts is explaining that the current events are generated by the occurrences of what transpired in 2024 and 2025. 

These so-called hired goons have been ‘allowed to happen’ by the security agencies in KaNairo! First, they were part and parcel of the ‘dispersal procedures’ targeted at the GEN-Zs protests.

They were seen alongside the police throughout the Capital City when they were “busy protecting businesses” with crude weapons against these youth who demanded better governance of the Capital City and the country at large. So, it is utterly ridiculous to see a Central Police Station commander throwing his English words of arrogance at the goons he enabled to create and sustain. 

Second, whereas investigations are still underway, as per our records and those uttered by the experts in those houses hosted and paid directly by Kenyan taxpayers, the so-called Nairobi in wenyewe group gave allowances and leeway to these goons to “protect their businesses” and hence they cannot cry foul. Now, the so-called chickens have come home to roost. Since they are ‘short-term thinkers’, they never thought about that kind of future during the GEN-Zs protests! 

Beyond the illicit and licit businesspersons, are a callous political class who directly hired and paid these goons to destroy property so as to malign and mudsling the GEN-Zs protests as illegitimate. Now the shoe is in their mouth.

Their “illegitimate” government is being threatened and they think they can outlive an impeachment by ‘buying’ people’s representatives. How insane? It was the genius Albert Einstein who stated that ‘insanity is trying to do the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results’.

As I pen off, I urge those who have not read or seen the play, “Betrayal in the City”, to make a point of doing so. In 1991, when I met Francis Imbuga in person, at the Dining Hall of Aquinas High School when he came to speak about this play, I asked him in public: “why did ‘Mulili’ not listen to ‘Jasper’, whenever and whatever he was advising about the future?” He retorted: “Go ye forth and when you meet ‘Mulili’ ask him that question.” 

Of course, I got the drift since ‘Mulili’ was only a character in a play and I would never meet him in the streets of Nairobi. However, for the last 30 plus years of voting in Nairobi City County, I have asked that question so many times, but the people seem always to be betrayed by the structures and systems of governance at City Hall.

But the Constitution of Kenya (2010) is superior and the Supreme Law contrasted from the City Hall by-laws. “We the People” are sovereign and we shall exercise our power either indirectly (through ward representatives) or directly; the way we may deem fit. I just hope that day is coming soon! For those who keep reading and quoting the Holy Bible, there are two phrases they should read:  first, “the writing is on the wall”; and second, “let my people go”. Need I say more?