Tasked to dismantle Nairobi corruption, cartels: This man Mohamed Badi

On Wednesday this week, President Uhuru Kenyatta oversaw the official take over of some functions of Nairobi county.

In a brief event presided over by Attorney General Paul Kihara, Governor Mike Sonko sealed City Halls's fate by signing an MoU with the national government to take over.

The takeover saw the head of state create a new unit - the Nairobi Metropolitan Services - tasked with the responsibility of transforming the city.

As a result, Uhuru appointed a major general and gave him 100 days to deal with corruption and dismantle cartels that have held the city at ransom for years.

Major General Mohamed Abdalla Badi is the Director General of the newly-created Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS).

Who is Badi?

Though retired, Major Badi is a figure well known within the military ranks and a career pilot.

He holds a Master’s degree of Science in Strategic Studies.

Badi happens to be in the category of military officers who took up civilian roles during the reign of General Samson Mwathethe.

He was also the Deputy Commandant at the National Defence College and also served as a logistics helicopter pilot.

At the National Defence College, Badi served as a Senior Directing Staff Air and also became the Moi Air Base Commander.

During the 1999 Sierra Leone Peacekeeping mission,  the retired Major General served as a United Nations staffer.

Until his appointment, Badi was a senior air director at the National Defence College.

Here, he was in charge of Kenya Air Force staff training.

Prior to his posting at NDC, Badi , a logistics helicopter pilot served as the Base Commander in charge of Moi Air Base in Eastleigh, Nairobi after his elevation from a Colonel in July 2014 to the rank of Brigadier by President Kenyatta.

In May 2019, Badi was promoted to the rank of Major-General in a major shakeup within the military ranks before he was then appointed as the Senior Directing Staff  Air at the NDC.

Badi joins a list of more than a dozen top officials from the military and the NIS who have joined the civil service in the past six years.

The current Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai, is a trained police officer whose stellar career in the police service saw him rise from a junior officer in the then Kenya Police Force in 1991 to the rank of Superintendent of Police before joining the then Directorate of Security Intelligence in 1998.

Mutyambai succeeded a former NIS man, Joseph Boinnet, who was the first NIS officer to move to a mainstream security docket and later credited with restoring the relationship between NIS and the police.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission CEO Twalib Mbarak, Director of Immigration Services Alexander Muteshi and the Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji are among those who served in the intelligence docket but now heading critical institutions in Uhuru's administration.

Haji, Mbarak and Muteshi were all serving as deputy directors at NIS before their appointments.