Sakaja: How I spent Sh15 million on election day
Johnson Sakaja, the Nairobi County Governor-elect has revealed that he spent Sh15 million on election day. Mr Sakaja, who was speaking during an interview in one of the local stations, said that he used the money on all the agents of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA).
“I spent Sh15 million to pay the 3,643 agents who were in all the polling stations within Nairobi County,” Sakaja said.
Mr Sakaja pointed out that politics is a very expensive affair and politicians usually go through a lot of challenges during the campaigning period.
He also said that his agents even decided to volunteer on the extra days when the vote tallying and verification process was taking place.
Mr Sakaja, who was running on a Kenya Kwanza Alliance ticket, emerged the winner with 699,392 votes against Polycarp Igathe’s (Azimio la Umoja) 573,518 votes.
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Mr Igathe, who served as the Deputy Governor during the reign of Mr Mike Sonko, was quick to concede defeat and has since met Mr Sakaja over a cup of tea. In his concession statement, Mr Igathe said he accepted the decision made by the people of Nairobi as he thanked them for their support.
The Nairobi gubernatorial race attracted a total of nine candidates but it was all narrowed down to a two-horse race between Mr Sakaja and Mr Igathe.
According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KRHC) Kenya’s election is the most expensive one in the world and the August 9 polls cost the country Sh40.9 billion. The report also revealed that a ballot paper is more expensive compared to the Kenyan shilling note.
The electoral body used Sh3.2 billion to print the election papers which contained special features, including generic watermarks and other features that made it impossible to photocopy.