The Nairobi circus and related drama from latest deal with President Ruto

“How will you actually run Nairobi without running to national government?” When, as expected, our platformed media hosts the Nairobi gubernatorial debate around July 2027, isn’t this what each candidate must answer?  You can be sure the responses will be fun, and funny. 

This may be a tricky question.  After all, given that Nairobi is our capital city, the seat of government, one of four United Nations headquarters globally and both local and regional diplomatic and economic hub for relations with the rest of the world, shouldn’t national government, as a matter of course, chip in its fair share of resources for this “extra work” beyond the equitable distribution that goes to all 47 counties, including Nairobi itself?  In other words, shouldn’t we already have a “Nairobi budget” in the national government budget to begin with? 

If you want to throw those 2027 candidates off balance, that is the bewildering follow-up question. 

Our many Kenyan “devolutionaries” may not like this angle of questioning, but, in order to understand if and why Nairobi is “surrendering” to national government, a different view may be that the national government “owes” Nairobi. 

But remember, devolution isn’t the same thing as counties, in the same way that national government isn’t just in Nairobi.  The territory of Kenya is made of 47 counties. Our devolved system of government means both national and county government exist in each county. 

Yes, the 4th Schedule of the Constitution prescribes the division of labour between national and county governments. But this gives national government an escape route from fully supporting territory-wide development and service delivery while holding onto 85 per cent of revenues. 

Kenya needs a “formula” that uses integrated (national and county) sector-level indicator-specifications for development and service delivery to permit more consultation and cooperation deals between national and county governments, even national-county framework agreements. 

The sad news is our centralising official public finance management mindset actively resists our simple, yet complex, devolved system of government. And this is what serially overfunds national government while systematically underfunding Nairobi and the other 46 counties. 

Back to the Nairobi circus cum theatre.  To be fair, it hasn’t just been chaos with the three governors to date; it was largely the same with our nine “multi-party” (post-1992) mayors to 2013, though arguably far less dramatic with our first five post-independence mayors up to 1983. 

Don’t forget Nairobi’s rock-bottom moment when, for almost a decade between 1983 and 1992, it was run as a politically appointed commission after the elected city council was disbanded.

Some might also recall resistance by councillors to the 2000-2002 World Bank-supported Nairobi Interim Oversight Board (IOB) established to address an ongoing financial management and service delivery crisis.  As a member of the multi-tasked consulting team advising on the financial management side (financial systems review, financial analysis and modelling), I would just say there is a book to be written.  Nairobi is a truly tragi-comic mix of “trial and error” and “spray and pray”. 

Which unfortunately brings us back down to the hard earth of current events. We have taken a roundabout route but today’s story concerns the two-year cooperation deal signed between the national government and Nairobi, or Nairobi City County Government (NCCG) in full.

As with everything Kenya Kwanza these days, two things follow every public announcement. 

First is the “shoot the messenger, not the message” phenomenon.  This is the backhand return to KK’s “if you are not with us, you are against us”, or better, “take it or leave it” style.

Today’s growing narrative is that those opposing KK ideas do so simply out of dislike of KK’s leader(s).  In this scenario, people aren’t even interested in what the cooperation agreement actually says. 

Second is the “more heat than light” phenomenon. This is different from the first in that the reaction in the former case is visceral while here it is about semantics. 

So, in this case, the argument is not that we don’t like this idea because it is KK, but beyond semantics, this is not anything different from the earlier NMS arrangement under the previous Nairobi administration”. 

We know right now that two things are happening at the moment with regard to this deal.

First, its already being litigated in our courts. Second, the Nairobi County Assembly is carrying out public participation. 

Let us not forget that this is all happening in the case of a deal already signed.  So, let us tease out three quick reflections on this deal as these processes proceed concurrently. 

The first and immediate one is about politics.  While we might recall Governor Johnson Sakaja’s “almost-impeachment” last September, which ended up with respective ODM and UDA reprieves of 30 days (to October) or 60 days (to November), we might view the deal as now cementing Nairobi in KK’s 2027 re-election strategy, with Sakaja now posited as Nairobi’s first two-term governor. 

To be clear, the targeting of interventions under this deal is deliberately populist, targeted at wards. And before shooting the messenger, rivals should first figure their ripostes to the deal.  One place to start might be why it looks like it was written in a hurry, as if national government had all of its ducks in a row, but Nairobi wasn’t ready.  Isn’t that what also happened with Mike Sonko? 

The second reflection is about governance, including planning and budgeting.  An immediate question is if and how the Sh80 billion in proposed investments has been factored into both the national budget (through the 2026 Budget Policy Statement) and the county budget (through the 2026/27 Annual Development Plan (ADP) and 2026 County Fiscal Strategy Paper (CFSP)).

For the record, at the time of writing, the ADP was missing from the county website, while the report approving it could not be accessed because the county assembly website was down.  What we do know is that Nairobi’s stated ADP need at the signing ceremony was Sh120 billion even though the assembly approved roughly Sh90 billion as recently as early December 2025. 

From the national government side, remember we still don’t have projects identified in the budget for a national infrastructure fund still being passed into law to collect privatization cash we already have. It is easy to see all of these new, off-plan, off-budget KK ideas as electoral slush funds, especially when budget execution and project implementation mechanisms remain unclear. 

Indeed, the fact that the President’s breakdown of the Sh80 billion on social media only added up to Sh67.4 billion (Sh12.6 billion short) only fuelled the suspicion of funny money looking for funny projects, even though neither the national BPS nor Nairobi’s CFSP has been passed yet.  

There is a second governance perspective. As we hear the governor running around for funding, let’s remember that Nairobi’s collects between Sh13 and Sh14 billion in own source revenue annually against a target of around Sh22 billion when, as we know and can extrapolate from past World Bank and CRA work, its current annual potential is over Sh100 billion without changing its existing laws. 

Nairobi is a circus, but by using this deal to, correctly, focus on Sakaja’s competence, we inadvertently miss the opportunity to profoundly improve and protect our devolution design.

It doesn’t help when the deal fixates on brick and mortar inputs and outputs, not human outcomes.