Prune them.

If Nairobi's alternative governor is its current senator, then we might as well give up now - or move to Machakos. Politics, Nairobi-style, is a zero-sum game. The gubernatorial politics of the Capital is not designed to encourage compromise or collaboration. It is designed to stall things long enough for one side or the other to gain an advantage and the the side to lose. Anyone who believes that the senator will have a rum time of it instead of the current governor has surely not been paying attention.

Let us look at the key areas of concern. Nairobi City County inherited massive debts from the City Council. Some of these debts were ill-advised, sanctioned by a series of local government ministers,including the current president, for political expediency. These debts have hobbled the county. It cannot invest in the facilities it needs to power its economy or improve the quality of life of its residents. These are, however, small-potato problems; the Capital is crippled because the Governor, the City's MPs, the Senator, the Woman Representative and the County Assembly refuse to work together to solve common problems.

The Woman Representative, for example, in a bid to build a name and a reputation for herself among the county's workforce, fomented disaffection among them, lead them to picket the county headquarters and engaged in fisticuffs with the governor. The Senator, on the other hand, has led a spirited vendetta against the governor, making allegations on very tenuous grounds. He has also, more or less, established a parallel county service of his own that runs breakdown services, ambulances, a fire brigade and, inexplicably, a wedding limousine service.

What the political stakeholders have failed to do - something their counterparts in the national government seem to grasp without much prodding - is to collaborate on the quiet. Especially in the case of the governor and the senator, their egos are so enormous and the air between them so poisoned it is impossible to believe that these two are politicians. Politics, someone should remind them, is the art of being in the same room with a skunk, holding your nose, and getting the job done. To each other, the senator and the governor are skunks and it is time they got over it.

Nairobi's challenges can only be resolved if there is a strong partnership between its political class and the national Executive, especially seeing that the national Executive is seated in Nairobi. Two years after its election and the overwhelming stories of doom and gloom about the prospects of the city refuse to die. How, for instance, can we have the Kenya Meteorological Department in Nairobi and still get caught wrongfooted to such an extent that homes are flooded? How can the traffic police be headquartered in the most traffic gridlocked city in Kenya? The governor and the senator are poisonous trees and it is time we pruned them from the fabric of the city.