Sakaja: Here are the events leading up to Nairobi Festival

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has laid out a raft of activities he says will be preceding the annual Nairobi Festival he introduced after assuming office.

The week-long festival, which kicks off on Monday, December 12, was announced in September as a fun-filled fair to be held every December to display and celebrate the “vibe of the city”.

It will be held after the December 12 Jamhuri Day celebrations, bringing together food, the arts, matatu art awards, as well as exhibitions on designated city streets.

Governor Sakaja on Sunday noted that there will also be sporting activities around the festival week to nurture sports talent and enable aspiring professional sportspersons to interact with mentors in the industry.

“There’ll be many events that will be leading up to the Nairobi Festival every year; one, sports events. Kenyan sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala wanted to set up a tartan track and bring the top five sprinters in Africa and race with the kids,” he said in an interview with Citizen TV.

According to the county boss, the trade exhibitions planned as part of the festival will take place for over a week at the ASK showground.

“It will also be a way to showcase our traders at not just Uhuru Park but also the ASK showground. We are discussing that with the county government because you cannot just have the show for a week and then close it down,” he said.

“We have an entire docket and a minister in charge of innovation and digital economy. We are showcasing our ICT skills and that is the theme of this year’s Jamhuri Day as well and so it’s not a one-off thing but many things which will add up into the whole festival.”

At the same time, Sakaja revealed that City Hall is introducing new youth-empowerment projects after the Kazi Mtaani programme was scrapped by President William Ruto.

“Instead of what used to be Kazi Mtaani, we are going to have a tree-planting program where these young people get 2,500 shillings a week. We will start with 10,000 youth across the city in conjunction with the National government,” he said.

Kazi Mtaani was introduced in April 2020 by former President Uhuru Kenyatta to cushion unemployed youth living in informal settlements in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Ruto scrapped it in October, saying that his government was exploring better and current employment programmes. He argued that the project had low income and limited opportunities for the youth.