Behind-The-Scenes Intrigues That Led to Elachi’s Resignation

Just a day after rendering her resignation to President Uhuru Kenyatta, details have emerged on what led to Nairobi County Assembly speaker Beatrice Elachi’s decision to resign.

Elachi is said to have received a late night phone call from to state officials pushing for her resignation.

Despite initially resisting the idea and threatening a legal challenge if she was ousted, Elachi reportedly accepted to step down after being promised a government appointment.

While resigning on Tuesday August 11, 2020, Elachi thanked President Kenyatta for giving her the opportunity to serve Nairobi for the last three years and said she hoped to serve in his administration in any other capacity in the near future.

“Today I humbly relinquish my position as the Speaker of Nairobi. I want to thank the President for giving me the opportunity to serve for the past three years,” she said.

On Friday July 31, as the nation celebrated Idd-ul-Azha, a meeting was underway at State House, which seemingly would seal the fate of Elachi as Nairobi County Assembly Speaker. 

According to the Standard, President Kenyatta had hosted 41 Jubilee MCAs for the two-hour long meeting to address the leadership crisis at City Hall and help forge a good working relationship with the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) to better service delivery for the electorate.

The meeting came days after chaos had rocked the Assembly when a number of MCAs tried to forcefully serve Elachi with a notice of Motion for her impeachment.

In attendance at the meeting, which started at about mid-day, were MCAs from the majority Jubilee Party, led by reinstated Majority Leader Abdi Guyo, deputy Majority Leader Peter Wanyoike, Majority Whip Paul Kados and deputy Majority Whip Waithera Chege.

Guyo is a fierce critic of the Speaker, who had to fight a faction allied to Elachi to regain the Majority Leader position.

Waithera, the South B MCA, was earmarked as the mover of the impeachment Motion against the Speaker.

Neither Elachi nor MCAs allied to her were present at the State House meeting.