Address devolution flaws to end fights between senators and governors

Samburu Governor Jonathan Lati Lelelit clashes with senators outside Parliament on April 1, 2026. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

The festering relationship between the Senate and governors reached an unprecedented peak last week. The Senate, or at least a section of it, escalated its response to the perceived defiance by the governors to a new level. The recipient of the Senate's fury was Samburu Governor Lelelit Lati. He was physically confronted for failing to honour the summons by the Senate's County Public Accounts Committee.

Contentious relationship between the two is not new. But its escalatory trajectory is revealing the intensity of the problem. The animosity is just a subset of the country's evolving devolution story. More pointedly, it is a symptom of the stubborn malady afflicting the country's devolved system. The malignant tumour, for that is what it is becoming, has had a wider contributing agency beyond just the Senate and the governors. In their own way, the National Assembly, the National Executive, the Judiciary, and the county assemblies have had their fair share in the intensifying problem.