ELECTION DAY: Why Nairobi needs your vote
Nairobi city has for so long been a filthy capital, solid waste, open sewers and mammoth pot holes have become a norm.
The country’s capital has been choking in uncollected garbage right in the city centre.
Sewer lines have burst open and remained unrepaired for months, not days.
Major roads in the CBD have large potholes. Open sewer pits are a common feature in the middle roads after their covers went missing for whatever reason.
Water shortage has become a new normal for city residents as private vendors make a killing.
Crime in the city has not decreased as pick pockets have a field day in city centre, snatching mobile phones from commuters in moving busses as deployed police officers watch.
Parking in the CBD is a gamble, motorists never sure whether they will find their side mirrors intact.
Street families are slowly increasing in numbers and children have become sweets, peanuts and chewing gum hawkers by day and night.
Hawkers no longer have specific areas to sell their wares and they have fallen prey to monster kanju askaris who stab them to death.
Businesses in the CBD are choking from high rates with no delivery of support services that should be provided by the county government for ease of doing business.
As you vote on Tuesday, ponder on what the city has become in the last five years.
The candidates are incumbent Governor Evans Kidero (ODM), Mike Sonko (Jubilee), Peter Kenneth (Independent), Miguna Miguna (Independent), Francis Mwanga Inganji, Macharia Lawrence, Mumo Michael and Waweru Godfrey.
The photos herein should be in your mind as you approach that voting booth.