We need to be more alert.

A Senate Bill dated November 21 has been officially gazetted. Put forward by Kembi Gitura, the Senator for Murang'a — who also happens to be the Deputy Speaker of the Upper House — the Bill places all the current drama surrounding Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero firmly in context.

Drama here referring to the implausible amounts of county funding purportedly unaccounted for — no less than Ksh20 billion of its Ksh23 billion allocation. As well as to the sudden move by the dubious NGO Co-ordination Board to investigate the sources of financing of a foundation established in the county governor’s name.

To clarify: It is not implausible that taxpayers’ money has been stolen from Nairobi County’s coffers. But the amount purportedly stolen — practically its whole budget — is implausible.

One more piece of contextual information. Despite flip-flops since the last general election, the county governor came to power through the political opposition. He now seems firmly back in its camp and has said he’s standing again. For a seat that a number of notorious, would-be Jubilant candidates have also publicly expressed an interest in.

It is against that background that the Senate Bill 19 of 2016 has to be read.

Bill 19 seeks to amend the Constitution to reduce the number of counties from 47 to 46. By designating Nairobi as the “national capital city,” removing it from devolution’s ambit and placing it under the control of the national government. And (get this!) enabling the president to appoint a Cabinet Secretary to run it.

No more Nairobi Governor. No more Nairobi Senator. No more Nairobi County Assembly. Just a Cabinet Secretary who reports to the president.

We could not be faulted for thinking that the Murang'a Senator has lost his mind. But we have to admit that the Bill is diabolically devious. If it passes — barring the small problem of it having to go to full referendum — it would resolve many of the ruling party and incumbent executive’s problems in one fell swoop.

Nairobi is historically quick to lose patience with ruling party madness. Yes, it is still very class- and race-stratified and the base of Kenya’s usually politically cautious and conservative middle/upper income brackets and private sector. But it is more ethnically heterogeneous than many other parts of Kenya and its population has much more access to alternative information and points of view.

It is also the home of both the national and international media. Anything that happens here tends to be better covered and assume more significance than perhaps it should. Meaning that maintaining our urbane veneer is more important here.

In short, Nairobi is hard to politically control.

That such a Bill could be even put forward it a testament to that.

But the Bill is, of course, outrageous. Against the devolutionary intent of the Constitution. And treating Nairobi residents as yet another public function to be brought under incumbent executive control. We don’t agree. We won’t agree. The Bill will fail.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Amnesty International’s regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes