Dr Evans Kidero is staring at an unpredictable political future after public transport operators moved to make real their promise of collecting 1 million signatures to remove him from office.
Kidero has been at loggerheads with the city’s matatu sector which continue to protest a raft of new wages imposed on them by the city government.
Led by Peter Kiige, the Nairobi Metropolitan PSV Sacco Union, the matatu operators want Kidero to revise the new rates downwards, or they get rid of him and elect a new person who will be ‘sensitive to their concerns’.
“We will get agents to mobilise people to come out and provide signatures. We already know where to have our stations and we will not backtrack once we begin the campaign,” said Mr Kiige.
Laban Maina, in charge of Kenya Taxi Cab Association, claims the new charges are unreasonable as their vehicles are used to meet lots of needs.
“The same vehicle is being used to service loans. We have rent to pay and families to take care of. Indeed, we have really been pressed as a result of the new rates and some of us may as well close business,” said Mr Maina.
This banks on the support of Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko and a host of jubilee leaders not comfortable with Dr Kidero as the governor of Nairobi.
New entrant in this dirty game is a giant financial institution with whom Dr. Kidero terminated its partnership with the county government thus losing out billions of shillings in business.
Politically, Dr Kidero is at a great disadvantage with the perception that he is not keen on the politics of the coalition which sponsored him to his current office.
In the botched ODM National Delegates Conference, NDC, Dr. Kidero was among the notable absentees despite the event happening in his own county. This has created a perception that the ODM governor is more Jubilee than CORD and which Senator Sonko has often exploited by making massive inroads in CORD/ODM dominated regions of the county.
Matters have been worse with the public disenchantment on Kidero’s scorecard a year after being put to power. Interestingly, the public transport gridlock has persisted with traffic management remaining elusive.
But it is not easy to remove Dr Kidero as these matatu operators think. Lurking in the shadows are commuters who are as outraged with the matatu owners/operators as they are with the county government.
Meaning, while collecting the 1 million signatures may seem easy, the practicality of removing Dr Kidero and installing ‘one of their own’ is a different story.