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There’s a new sheriff in Nairobi, Maj-Gen Mohamed Abdala Badi, appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta to take charge of the services that the national government has taken over from the Nairobi county government. 

Badi will be the director of the newly formed Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS).The circumstances surrounding the City Hall takeover are well known.

Maj-Gen Badi needs to hit the ground running, because Nairobians are now weary of all the twists and turns that characterise leadership of  the city, as well as the very urgent tasks that need to be undertaken.

Badi comes into a City Hall that is in complete chaos, courtesy of a rogue governor, and in mortal grip of vested, entrenched interests and murderous cartels.

In the immediate term, the General should concentrate on the most critical areas where he can make an immediate impact.

The first is garbage collection. Nairobi is a filthy dumpster. Everywhere you go, you are accosted by  heaps of garbage which have piled for weeks. The central business district is an eyesore.

He needs to mobilise City Hall’s cleaning department as well as the National Youth Service for a major cleanup of the city—unclog sewers, clear out culverts and drainage canals, and enforce laws against dumping waste into rivers. 

Secondly, a major cleaning and fumigation operation in all Nairobi markets and commercial centres, airports, bus stops and matatus termini, churches, malls and informal settlements, among other places. This should become a regular operation at least once every month. 

Soap and water in all these areas must become the new law, and every business  premise, including market stalls, must henceforth, provide their customers with soap and water to wash their hands before being served.

  Diseases will probably collapse. If there is one critical thing Badi can do, it is to institutionalise strict hygiene in the city. 

The third priority is finances. This is the most chaotic area in City Hall. This is where the entrenched interests are vested, and where cartels rule, literally.

If the Maj-Gen Badi does not void these vultures, he will never run City Hall. And he will fail, like so many before him. 

Fortunately, the National government has given him a new team drawn from outside City Hall to run  the operations he will be in charge of.

He has been given senior officials from the Treasury to take over the Finance Department. Badi must immediately signal that it is not going to be business as usual.

First, send all officers in the Finance department on a long leave. They should be redeployed in other Government ministries on return. Procure everything that is in the pipeline afresh.

This will help oust the cartel-captured procurement system that has made supplying City Hall a nightmare. 

Also, start paying pending bills according to the list approved and prepared by the pending bills committee, and according to the instructions of the President to give SMEs priority, especially those below the Sh5 million mark.

These payments have been stymied by the cartels who have made sure nobody gets paid until their illicit payments are made first.

Of course, these cartels will not just roll over and die. It’s going to be a war, and Badi must knock heads.

So, it helps that the good general is a warrior, and his experience strategising for hot wars will stand him in very good stead.

Once he streamlines procurement and payments, he will have rooted out corruption from City Hall.

This will be his biggest war. To reiterate, if he does not move decisively to win the war against the cartels in City Hall, they will have him for breakfast.  

Luckily, he has weapons on his side, and huge support. For the first time in a long time, politicians have been muted. Nairobians and the National government are united behind one objective—City hall’s radical reform.

Fourth, Badi must urgently consttute a coronavirus reponse unit and strategy like his counterparts especially in Western Kenya, where Kakamega’s Wycliffe Oparanya, has been leading from the front in this regard.

Even as the National government does its bit, counties are at the forefront, and they must step up.  Go General. Nairobi is rooting for you!—[email protected]