Sonko denies drinking alcohol during meetings, threatens to sue

Nairobi County Governor Mike Sonko is not a happy man after an expose from a local daily alleged that his routine at City Hall was running on pistons fueled by alcohol.

In the expose, the daily claimed that Sonko’s 5am to 10pm itinerary was doused with whisky, erratic meetings and utter disregard of norms and systems.

“From 10 am, most of his meetings are punctuated with glasses of Cognac, his favourite brand. And, being a master of camouflage, next to the glass is always a package of apple juice. You can hardly tell he is in fact enjoying his whisky unless you’re an insider…

“What got me worried when I started working for him is the idea of drinking in the office. Yet interestingly, his confidence level increases and the tone changes once he has taken considerable amounts of the drink,” read an excerpt from the paper.

In a long response on Facebook, Sonko denied the allegations that he takes copious amounts of alcohol in meetings disguised as juice and downs glasses of his favourite whisky with MCAs throughout the day.

“The claim that I drink alcohol in meetings and throughout the day is an outright lie, and it will be upon the Sunday Nation to prove this in court. If I am due to meet an ambassador as reported in the story, and a meeting I have with slum dwellers overruns in terms of time, is that a crisis?”

Sonko added that the expose was a ploy by his ‘detractors’ aimed at running his administration aground. He refuted claims that his day to day activities were chaotic.

“I want to tell these malicious individuals that I was elected by the people, and they are always welcome to present their issues to me. This is how I have always operated, allowing people to reach me, both in and out of the office…

“This is all being orchestrated by a group of people engaged in high level succession politics that I have talked about in the past, whose implementing lead person is Internal Security PS Karanja Kibicho. They have been celebrating the 'success' of the hatchet job together with their contact.”