Nyamira County government is under pressure to explain the criteria used to invite residents for a mini-devolution dialogue ahead of Devolution conference to be held in Meru later next week.
The county government hosted the conference in which it seized the opportunity to explain its achievements, but hundreds of residents were locked out of the Sironga Girls event on Thursday.
In the official Facebook page, the residents trolled the county government accusing it of ‘stage-managing’ the event to lock out criticism.
“The whole event was stage managed and the county government knows that. We are yet to know the platforms they used to sensitize people to attend because not even a single media house announced it,” said Moses Omayio.
“The conference was best suited for sycophants who got the opportunity to praise this ailing regime. People were not told and we only saw last minute posts on social media by senior county officials. This means that the government didn’t want to hear the cries of people,” added James Omanwa.
“They want to hide their incompetence by inviting pro-government people. This is a wrong way to move and it’s wrong to pay bloggers last minutes to popularize the event,” added Martha Kerubo.
However county Secretary Erick Onchana dismissed the claims saying residents were made aware through ward administrators.
“It’s unfair to say that we didn’t inform people. Ward administrators circulated the message and in fact we had attendants from all over. It’s wrong to elude that only pro- government people attended. I heard people raising genuine concerns about our county,” he said.