City dwellers now have a chance to have a one on one telephone chat with Governor Mike Sonko about their challenges.

The County boss on Tuesday gave out his cell phone number and encouraged city residents to engage him by calling him or texting him between 5 am and 7.30 am.

To reach him, Nairobians have been asked to use the number 0722 886600.

Sonko made the announcement on social media platforms, drawing mixed reactions from netizens.

“Good morning Nairobians. I will be receiving your calls from 5.50 am to 7.30 am. Use 0722886600 in case busy just text and I will call back. Urgent issues please especially on challenges we are facing,” posted Sonko.


While the gesture was well received by a majority, some labeled it a PR gimmick.

One Amin Ali challenged Sonko to set up a call centre with subsections that deal with each ward. The subsections will collect issues from every ward and then attach the tickets or complaints to the respective Ward Representatives and ensure resolution of the same within specified time.

“This is a good gesture but may not be viable, you need to set up a Call Centre with subsections dealing with each ward….you will have your head office guys also have the issues automatically escalated to them after a lapse of certain amount of time. This will help in identifying the issues, allocating resources to the issues and tracking the resolution time of the issues,” he said.

Sonko was open to the idea and responded; “We shall try to fix that issue of a call center. Thank you.”

Another Kenyan on Twitter, @dankasesh’, dismissed the initiative as a public relations stunt.

” [Stop the] PR stunts. I tried getting to you and was told the mail box was full. Anyway, we have serious water problems in South C.”

Others said Sonko’s idea was not practical. Daniel Chiedo wrote; “His idea of an open door and open call for more than 2million Nairobians is not practical.”

Omollo Junior received the announcement with positivity, writing: “This has impressed me. I wish other Governors could pick this. Service delivery would be improved.”