Mike Sonko: How Ann Kananu helped me evade assassination
Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has claimed that his successor, Ann Kananu, helped him avoid a planned assassination while she worked at the Wilson Airport.
Speaking during the initiation ceremony of Kananu’s son, Benjamin Mwenda in Ganga ward in Tharaka Nithi County, Sonko said after gaining a lot of political popularity, some senior politicians in the country saw him as a threat and plotted to kill him through a plane crash.
He said the politicians realized he had won the hearts of the Nairobi people and Kenyans at large through his good work and that they could not manipulate the city dwellers, they planned to eliminate him.
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He said after getting information on the well-orchestrated assignation scheme, he stopped booking choppers with his names and Kananu could help him hire a chopper secretly for his movements.
He said the chopper could pick him up at an undisclosed place along Thika Road and take him to wherever he wanted without his adversaries’ awareness.
“The politicians wanted me to die in a plane crash just the way the Internal Security minister George Saitoti perished but Kananu saved me a great deal by hiring chopper for me without another person knowing,” claimed Mr Sonko.
He said because of her great help, he decided to reward Kananu by appointing her chief officer in charge of Disaster Management and Coordination in May 2018 and after her great performance; she picked her as his deputy.
Ms Kananu worked with the Kenya Airports Authority, where she had been a security supervisor in charge of quality control and training for 13 years.
Kananu was nominated as deputy governor in January 2020 after Sonko operating without a deputy since Polycarp Igathe resigned in January 2018.
Sonko said when former President Uhuru Kenyatta successfully plotted his ouster; they picked Kananu as his successor without knowing that they were great friends.
However, Sonko tried to stop the swearing-in of Kananu as governor but the Court of Appeal judges ruled that his application did not meet the threshold to be granted the order.
The bench also noted that the issue of swearing in Kananu was not among the grounds raised by Sonko in his appeal.
Sonko said even after taking over the Nairobi governorship, Kananu continued consulting with him and at some point, Uhuru threatened to engineer her ouster if she was seen with him.
“Uhuru never knew that Kananu was my great friend and we used to meet at night and she supported me financially in my Mombasa governorship campaigns though the bid was not successful,” he said.