Nzioka Waita To Resign as State House Chief of Staff to Focus on Machakos Gubernatorial Race

Nzioka Waita, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Chief of Staff, has underlined that he will resign from his post to pursue a political career this month.

Waita announced on Citizen TV’s NewsNight show on Tuesday that he would be running for governor of Machakos County in the August elections.

“I will work till the 9th of February at 5 am. I will then make a farewell call to the president and ask for his blessings and support as well as thank him for allowing me to work for the people of Kenya in his service,” he told Waihiga Mwaura.

Despite conceding that he will be close to President Kenyatta, Waita stated that it is now his responsibility to persuade the people of Machakos to vote for him and that their assets will be safe in his hands.

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In the same vein, he emphasized that, contrary to what his adversaries claim, the Head of State’s development legacy project is on track.

President Kenyatta, according to Waita, has made considerable investments in several areas of the Kenyan economy, assuring the country’s future as a development pioneer in the East African region.

“It is beginning to look like take off. We have gone through an extremely difficult time of heavy investments that has taken its toll on the public exchequer but those investments have set the country on the trajectory for growth. They are investments that position our economy for sustainable but increased growth,” Waita said. 

“Like any scorecard, there will be successes and failures. If you look at employment, we were growing steadily at around 800,000 formal jobs per year, still not absorbing what was in the market, but we were able to generate significant number of permanent and temporary jobs for people coming into the working environment.”

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Waita emphasized that while the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the country’s economy should not be underestimated, vital infrastructure in sectors such as health did not collapse in the aftermath of the pandemic due to considerable expenditures made in the sector.

“COVID-19 devastated our economy and were it not for some of the investments and the fiscal prudence of the Treasury, CBK and the leadership of President Kenyatta, we would not have managed to come out unscathed,” he stated.

Waita, who gave President Kenyatta a 70 percent rating for service delivery, justified his choice to spend extensively in transportation infrastructure during his second term in office, claiming that Kenya had missed out on many possibilities due to logistics restrictions.

Waita will face off with Transport CAS Wavinya Ndeti, former Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama, Machakos County Assembly Speaker Florence Mwangangi, Deputy Governor Francis Maliti, and Mavoko MP Patrick Makau among others.