Thursday’s arrest of Nairobi’s Urban Planning Chief Officer, Patrick Analo Akivaga, his wife, and the seizure of tens of millions hidden in his Syokimau home read like a movie script. While his conduct has long attracted public concern, this moment must not be reduced to the wrongdoing of an individual. We must also focus on the deeper systemic and relational failures that enabled him to thrive at City Hall.
Televised EACC raids revealing boxes and suitcases stuffed with bundles of thousand-shilling notes were dramatic. Only a full audit of his and his family’s bank accounts, properties in Nairobi and Vihiga, assets, car boots, and the eventual charge sheet will reveal the true scale of his wealth. Salaries and Remuneration Commission guidelines cap a County Chief Officer’s monthly salary at KSH 283,000. Even using the EACC’s figure of KSH 65.3 million (and overlooking media reports of KSH 250 million) seized from his home, it would take 19 years to accumulate that amount through salary alone.
A senior director across the Sonko–Kananu–Sakaja administrations, Analo is no stranger to controversy. A February 2026 Ombudsperson report, covered in this column, cited abuse of power, urged his criminal prosecution alongside four others, including County Minister Stephen Mwangi, and flagged unlawful prior approvals, ignored objections, and weak enforcement linked to corruption. As Analo heads to court, focusing on him alone misses the wider system enabling abuse and illicit wealth. Nairobi, the country’s main construction hub, issues an estimated 4,000–6,000 permits annually. This generates over KSH 2 billion, or 22 per cent of the Nairobi Government’s own-source revenue. Yet planning governance remains deliberately opaque.
Industry experts say the approvals process is greased by bribes. Files are “lost,” “delayed,” or fast-tracked for a fee, often without an e-TIMS receipt. Projects stall without informal payments or offers of one or two apartment units. Approvals are regularly granted for buildings that are non-compliant and that breach safety, zoning, and planning laws such as the National Building Code and the Physical and Land Use Planning Act (2019).
From deadly floods, collapsing buildings, stinking garbage, and seeping sewage to traffic congestion and tenure insecurity, Nairobi reflects a city effectively sold off to developers, most of whom are not Kenyan, for the profit of a few corrupt officials at City Hall. Nairobi’s permit system is not just broken, it is in a corruption chokehold that raises business costs, constrains housing supply, and strangles the possibility of a liveable city for over five million residents.
Anxious not to be implicated, a responsive Governor would immediately declare a systemic failure, resist the temptation to introduce the “rogue officer” narrative, suspend all five officials named in the February Ombudsperson report pending full investigations, and hand over all permits, approvals, and inspection records from Analo’s tenure to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.
The Governor’s and Director of Public Prosecutions’ late-night statements on Friday, June 5, apportion blanket criminal responsibility to the Nairobi City County Urban Planning Technical Committee (UPTC). The UPTC includes representatives from the Architects Association of Kenya, the Kenya Alliance of Residents Associations, the Kenya Institute of Planners, the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, and the National Land Commission. This is either misdirected or diversionary. Non-state officers on advisory committees do not hold public office and therefore cannot abuse it. Targeting representatives of residents and professionals risks criminalising public participation. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions must focus on state officers in the chain of responsibility who hold decision-making authority.
The County should impose a 30-day moratorium on all approvals, publish five years of permit data, timelines, and statuses, end in-person follow-ups, and launch a digital public transparency dashboard with permit logs, timestamps, statuses, a 30-day complaint resolution system, and monthly revenue data. Within 180 days, approvals, inspections, and enforcement should be separated to ensure that no single officer controls the full pipeline. Enforcement officers without qualifications in structural engineering, architecture, or planning should be phased out or retrained.
Nairobians should deliberate, and the County Assembly should pass legally binding development control guidelines and area physical development plans. Is it not time for national regulators such as NCA, NHA, KURA, KeNHA, and NEMA to act decisively? Encroachments are rampant. Why wait a decade to mark and demolish buildings with the prohibitive red “X” when action can be taken now? For 2027 aspirants, should those currently in office fail, this must become your priority.
This week’s bold EACC action demonstrates the power of consistent advocacy by the Metro Alliance and its members, the Denis Pritt Association, Parklands Residents Association, Kilimani Community Foundation, South B Residents Association, the Kenya Alliance of Residents Associations, and the Commission on the Administration of Justice, among others. Citizen letters, media exposés, and joint litigation do, eventually, work. However, without sustained pressure for systemic change, our capital city, and 20 per cent of its revenue will remain captured by reckless profiteers.
Irũngũ Houghton writes in his personal capacity. Email: [email protected]