Sakaja breaks silence on collapsed building, trains guns on rogue developers

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja arrives at the site of the collapsed building in South C on January 4, 2025. [Benard Orwongo, Standard]

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has broken his silence after the public questioned his continued absence for nearly three days after a mixed-use multi-storey building collapsed in South C shopping centre, claiming two lives.

Speaking when he visited the site of the incident on Sunday, Sakaja revealed that he had been out of town and made a point of prioritizing the visit upon his return.

“I was away. This is the first place I have come to so that I can see what the disaster response teams are doing,” Sakaja said.

He defended his administration against accusations that it looked the other way as the building's developers blatantly violated building regulations, even going ahead to construct two additional floors despite having obtained approvals for only 12, leading to the pancake collapse of the structure last Friday.

Instead, Sakaja called for the conferment of prosecutorial powers to counties to enable them to rein in developers who violate regulations, adding that the law currently limits the devolved units to issuing statutory approvals with little intervention in the case of infractions.

Nairobi City County government says it flagged the collapsed building at least three times last year, including when it raised an alarm with the developer last month.

According to the governor, the approvals for the building were issued properly. However, there were enforcement issues over certain infractions like resisting inspection and going beyond the line.

“There are challenges in the enforcement of the regulations that we have expressed in the past. Once a developer gets statutory approvals, as was the case with this building, sometimes when there are infractions, and they are charged, the charges get dropped, or they get a Sh20,000 fine,” he stated.

Nairobi Governor Sakaja vows to ensure those found culpable for the South C building collapse are held accountable and face prosecution

Video by Benard Orwongo pic.twitter.com/pzKdxs0v3Y

— The Standard Digital (@StandardKenya) January 4, 2026

He further criticised some owners of fronting qualified professionals when seeking approvals, only to drop them after obtaining the clearance and settling for less qualified workers at the construction phase, where dangers abound.

“When the regulations are violated, what we do as a county is to issue an enforcement notice. The constitutional mandate to charge or prosecute is not with the county. This lies with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP). In this case, the charges were dropped,” he said.

He added: “That is why we are saying, as counties, that we want the prosecutorial powers because the threshold demanded by ODPP for the cases sometimes is too high. We’ve had many issues since the powers were taken away last year.”

In a statement released late Sunday, the ODPP directed the police to investigate the circumstances that led to the fatal incident and submit the file within seven days. 

"The DPP has directed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to record statements from all relevant persons, including the developer and the contractor, and the persons responsible for the relevant building and construction approvals, inspection, and enforcement, and forward the resultant file for perusal and action within seven days from the date hereof," read part of the statement.

The governor consoled the families of the two guards who were trapped under the rubble. So far, one body has been retrieved while search and rescue efforts continue.

Disaster responders drawn from the National Disaster Management Unit, Nairobi County, the National Police Service, the Kenya Defence Force, and the Kenya Red Cross are still combing through the rubble.