City tycoons, cartels raise funds to bribe MCAs to impeach Sonko – Weekly Citizen

City tycoons have ganged up with cartels that used to control multibillion shillings tenders at City Hall to bribe MCAs to impeach Governor Mike Sonko.

Already,Somali tycoons that have landed multi-million  tenders at city hall but fallen out with Sonko are part of the impeachment plan.

Insiders at City Hall revealed that Marble Arch Hotel proprietor Mike Maina and Pimp My Ride East Africa owner Peter Nderitu are leading the drive to raise funds to bribe MCAs to kick out the governor.

Maina, a reclusive city billionaire, fell out with Sonko after he demolished residential houses in Kayole Nairobi where he was claiming more than 20 acres of land.

In retaliation, the Governor alleged that the tycoon had used fake title deeds to get eviction notices from the courts to evict and demolish houses in Kayole estate.

Sonko later served Maina with a 14-day notice to demolish part of the facility at Marble Arc Hotel which the county government claimed had encroached on a road barely 12 hours after the county government demolished a parking lot at the hotel which is situated along Lagos Road.

Their war escalated and landed in court with the businessman accusing a media house and the city boss of defaming him during a live show.

In a court papers, Sonko was listed as a proposed third party in the suit in which Maina obtained an injunction from Justice Cecilia Githua barring Royal Media Services from publishing any defamatory information about him.

The case was filed by Maina and his two companies — Marble Arch Hotel and Muthithi Investment.

Maina had a run-in with Sonko following the demolition of Nyama Villa estate in Kayole, where the investor planned to build a multimillion shilling project. Sonko claimed the land in question belonged to the county government and Maina grabbed it in the Kanu days. Maina was a business associate of former President Daniel arap Moi’s daughter, June, and reportedly acquired the said property when Moi was in power.

For Nderitu, he fell out with the governor after the county boss demolished his premises situated where Simmers Club once stood.

Pimp My Ride East Africa had rushed to court to challenge the notice given to the proprietor by the County Government of Nairobi but the matter was dismissed.

Nderitu suffered huge losses after his business complex located on the former Simmers club land was demolished for failure to get building approval from City Hall.

The complex was located at the junction of Kenyatta Avenue and Muindi Mbingu Street in Nairobi’s Central Business District.

Businesses located on the land included “pimp my ride” car wash, “Chapa copy” a photocopying business, an Mpesa shop, an electronics shop as well as a stall selling urban wear.

The demolition was linked to an incident where Sonko halted the demolition of a church and school in Buru Buru which Nderitu claimed to own.

Sonko said the individual responsible for evicting the church and school from the Buru Buru land was also the owner of the land where simmers formally stood and he would teach him a lesson.

But there are reports Sonko had planned to compensate Nderitu with Sh70 million.

Already, Nairobi MCAs have been given the greenlight to impeach the embattled governor after the High Court declined to stop his removal from office.

Sonko is charged with embezzling Sh357 million. He is out on Sh15 million bail and is likely to be impeached by the county assembly over the current stalemate at City Hall after he was barred from accessing county offices.

This comes as two individuals, George Bush and Lawrence Oyugi move to court seeking to stop Sonko’s prosecution.

Bush and Oyugi are the chairman and CEO of Concerned Citizen Alliance respectively.

But Judge Weldon Korir directed them to file a formal application on impeachment, instead of making it verbally as they did.

Similarly, the judge declined to stop the criminal proceedings at the magistrate’s court against Sonko and directed them to serve the Director of Public Prosecutions with the application.

The DPP was granted 14 days to file his response in the matter where the two are challenging Sonko’s prosecution.

According to sources, several meetings have been held at a top city hotel to plan how to induce MCAs to impeach the governor.

Besides Nderitu and Maina, other tycoons said to be bankrolling the exercise include controversial businessman Francis Mburu, former Starehe MP Maina Kamanda and George Wainaina, a former chief of staff at City Hall during the reign of Evans Kidero.Not left behind are monied  city hall fathers who Sonko sacked from heading lucrative departments.