NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 12 – The Spokesperson for the Raila Odinga Presidential Campaign Secretariat Professor Makau Mutua has advised Nairobi residents “to vote with your heads and not with their hearts” in the August polls.
Mutua gave the advice on Tuesday a day after six candidates eyeing to succeed Governor Anne Kananu took part in the Nairobi debate.
“Let’s not repeat history for, if we do, we shall live to regret it,” Mutua said in reference to the 2017 Nairobi gubernatorial election that saw former Governor Mike Sonko elected.
“In 2017, the good people of Nairobi elected a man of dubious provenance because, they said, he was a man of the people. We know the results of that emotional choice,” Mutua said.
Mutua belongs to the Azimio La Umoja – One Kenya Alliance wing whose candidate in the Nairobi Governor race is Polycarp Igathe faced-off with Kenya Kwanza Alliance candidate and Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja.
The Nairobi gubernatorial race has attracted 11 candidates but only 8 showed up for the debate which was done in two tiers and aired across all media outlets.
Six candidates namely Nancy Wambui Mwadime (Usawa Kwa Wote Party), Kenneth Nyamwamu (United Progressive Alliance), Harman Singh Grewal (Safina Party), and Esther Waringa Thairu (Independent) took part in first session of the debate.
Governor candidates Agnes Kagure (Independent), Cleophas Kiio Mutua (Ford Kenya) and Denise Kodhe (Liberal Democratic Party) failed to honor the debate invitations.
During the debate, the candidates were grilled on issues ranging from governance, leadership and Integrity, transport and living standards in the City.
It is however, the second tier debate that featured Sakaja and Igathe that dwarfed discourse on the City’s pressing concerns.
The auditorium at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) literally became a ‘battlefield’ as the duo sought to impress the 2.4 million city voters during the much-anticipated debate.
United Democratic Alliance (UDA) candidate Johnson Sakaja and Polycarp Igathe of Jubilee Party which is under the Azimio La Umoja -One Kenya went after weak areas, in a clear race to outsmart each other as the August 9 City Hall race nears.
From Sakaja’s contested credentials to Igathe’s move to quit as Deputy Governor months after his 2017 election “when the ‘kitchen’ got hotter,” it was an all out clash for the duo.
A bare-knuckle contest over the management of Kenya’s capital, a major contributor to the national budget, ensued with time seemingly being insufficient for Sakaja to elaborate detailed responses that appeared to shutter Igathe’s solo head start in the debate owing his opponent’s late arrival.
“I wanted to give Igathe a head start. He is used to getting it from the State,” Sakaja fired back in opening remarks when pressed about his late arrival at the debate.
It is however Igathe who threw the first political jab after he said he would run Nairobi in a dignified manner, “unlike people who arrive for interviews late.”
He raised issues on Sakaja’s degree fiasco saying, “people who haven’t concluded school lack manners.”
Sakaja’s qualification was at the center of the debate and specifically whether he really holds a genuine degree certificate.
However, on Tuesday morning the High Court dismissed a petition challenging the validity of Sakaja’s academic qualifications due to lack of evidence.
