• Atwoli said the people behind the vandalisation of the road sign are envious adding that it does not hurt him.
• While addressing journalists in Nairobi on Thursday, Atwoli said that roads should not be named after the dead.
Image: COURTESY
COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli has said he does not have to lobby for his name to appear on a ‘small’ road.
“I don’t need to lobby for such a small road. I need a bigger road than that… Jogoo road should have been named after me,” he said.
“I was told that I was going to be honored. I did not lobby for that. I can’t lobby for a small road.. its just being envious for nothing,” he said.
While addressing journalists in Nairobi on Thursday, Atwoli said that roads should not be named after the dead.
In June 2017, the National Addressing System Strategy Development and Implementation Committee prohibited changing street names to those of living persons.
“I will not know. Let heroes be celebrated when they are alive. Do anything when I am still alive not to come to my funeral and praise me. I will curse you!”
He said he was born in Nairobi adding that he needed bigger road than that.
“They would have named jogoo road after me. I need bigger road,” he said.
“People are envious and few bloggers who are involved in such things because they want to blackmail me.”
Atwoli said the people doing this are envious adding that it does not hurt him.
“If I was asked to choose I would have chosen a prominent road to be named after me not Dik Dik road,” he added.
Atwoli said on Wednesday that the criticism he has been subjected to after Dik Dik Road was named after him, is covered in tribalism.
As he responded to an editorial by the Star, Atwoli insisted that Kenyans should stop condemning things for the sake of it.
"Most of the criticisms are without doubt thinly-veiled tribalism. This is not good for a multicultural, multiethnic and multi-religious society," Atwoli said.
The editorial by the Star had called for the reversal of the renaming of Dik Dik Road in Kileleshwa to Francis Atwoli Road.
The Star said Nairobi County should reverse its decision and let the name Dik Dik Road stay because rules were not followed in naming the road.
Three weeks ago, the Nairobi County Government named Dik Dik Road in Kileleshwa after Atwoli.
The move did not settle well with several people and this has seen the signage bearing his name get vandalised twice.
A few days after it was erected, unknown individuals took down the signage, which was later on erected.
On Tuesday morning, Kenyans woke up to pictures of the signage which had been set ablaze, by unknown individuals.
A team was later sent to repaint the signage.