State House boss eyes Machakos governor seat
Nzioka Waita, State House Chief of Staff, has joined the race to succeed Alfred Mutua as Machakos governor.
A lawyer by profession, Waita is said to have quietly kickstarted his campaigns by erecting several billboards appearing to announce his candidature and vision for the county.
There is also a website highlighting his six-point plan for the people of Machakos which he says from his interaction with the people in the county.
“Interactions with the residents of Machakos led to the development of an agenda that will address their immediate needs that are clustered around health, education, water, markets, an enabling business environment for job creation and investment attraction, and ward level development,” it states in part.
A teetotaller and Church elder, Waita comes from Kiima Ki Imwe near Machakos.
He was born and brought up at Kalama, in Muuma Andu Sub County.
President Uhuru Kenyatta plucked him from Safaricom Waita to steam-roll his development agenda via the Presidential Delivery Unit(PDU), a position he’s held since 2018.
He is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a Certified Public Secretary, and a member of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). He holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Sheffield and a Masters (LLM) in IT and Communications Law from the Queen Mary University of London.
At Safaricom, he served various capacities ranging from his role as Legal Services Manager between 2002 and 2007 and after that as Head of Legal & Regulatory Affairs between the years of 2007and 2010, followed by a brief stint as Head of Strategy & New Business responsible for driving the company’s mergers and acquisitions agenda, a position he held until April 2011
Following the death of Safaricom, CEO Bob Collymore Waita was appointed as an alternate executor of his will should anything happen to Wambui.
He is certain to face political competition from Johnstone Muthama and Wavinya Ndeti in his bid to become Machakos second governor.