By the 254.ke Newsroom
Comedian-turned-activist Eric Omondi says his Punguza Mzigo campaign has collected roughly 450,000 of the one million signatures it needs to force a national conversation on cutting Kenya’s 47 counties down to eight. Getting a referendum on the ballot, however, takes far more than a headline signature count — and that’s the part most coverage of Omondi’s arrests has skipped over.
What is Punguza Mzigo actually proposing?
Omondi’s initiative would collapse the current 47 devolved counties into eight regional blocs, mirroring Kenya’s pre-2010 provinces. Alongside that, the proposal calls for scrapping the Senate and the Women Representative seats, and trimming the number of MPs and MCAs. Omondi argues the savings from a smaller political and administrative structure could fund free education from primary school through university, and has framed the campaign as a direct answer to the cost of devolved government.
He launched the signature drive at the Nairobi National Archives on September 7, 2026, and was arrested by plainclothes officers within hours, accused of holding a gathering without notifying police. He and seven co-accused were released on a free bond the next day at Milimani Law Courts, denied the charges, and had their case set for mention on September 29, 2026. A second arrest followed on Moi Avenue over alleged traffic obstruction during a later signature-collection stop.
How many signatures does he actually need, and what happens after?
This is where Article 257 of the Constitution, not Omondi’s press conferences, decides what happens next. The provision allows any Kenyan to propose a constitutional amendment through a popular initiative — but only if it clears a specific sequence:
- Signatures: at least one million registered voters must sign the petition, attached to a fully drafted amendment Bill, not just a list of proposals.
- IEBC verification: the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission checks the signatures against the voter roll. Names that don’t match a registered voter, or are duplicated, don’t count.
- County assemblies: once verified, the IEBC sends the Bill to all 47 county assemblies, which have three months to debate it. A majority of assemblies (24 or more) must approve it before it can move further.
- Parliament: if it clears the counties, both the National Assembly and the Senate must pass it by simple majority.
- Referendum: because the Punguza Mzigo proposal touches devolution and the structure of counties, it cannot bypass a public vote. It would need at least 20% of registered voters in at least half of Kenya’s 47 counties to turn out, with a simple majority in favour.
Kenya has been here before. The 2016 Okoa Kenya initiative, led by the then-opposition CORD coalition, collected over a million signatures but the IEBC found a large share invalid on verification, and the drive collapsed before reaching county assemblies. The 2020/2021 Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) took a different route — a parliamentary and presidential-taskforce process rather than a pure popular initiative — and was ultimately struck down by the courts on separate constitutional grounds. Both precedents suggest the signature count Omondi is publicising is the easiest hurdle in the process, not the hardest.
Why is a comedian leading a constitutional campaign?
Omondi built his public profile on comedy and stunt activism — from his “Comedy Store” shows to earlier campaigns targeting piracy in Kenya’s entertainment industry. Punguza Mzigo marks his most direct entry into constitutional politics, and it has drawn a mixed reaction from sitting legislators. Lang’ata MP Jalang’o publicly warned Omondi that “changing the Constitution is far more complicated than collecting signatures,” noting that even a fully verified petition still has to survive a Parliament made up of the same MPs and Senators whose seats the proposal would cut or restructure — a structural conflict of interest that has sunk similar reform pushes before.
| Milestone | Status as of September 23, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Signatures collected | ~450,000 claimed (of 1,000,000 required) |
| IEBC verification | Not yet submitted |
| County assembly review | Not reached |
| Court case (traffic/assembly charges) | Pending, mention set for September 29, 2026 |
| Counties needed to approve | 24 of 47 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Punguza Mzigo the same as the 2019 Third Way Alliance “Punguza Mizigo” bill?
No. A similarly named initiative in 2019, led by the Third Way Alliance and Ekuru Aukot, also proposed cutting the number of counties and MPs and reached the county-assembly stage before most assemblies rejected it. Omondi’s 2026 campaign is a separate, unrelated petition, though it echoes several of the same proposals.
Can Eric Omondi’s campaign legally proceed while he faces criminal charges?
Yes. The traffic-obstruction and unlawful-assembly charges relate to specific incidents during signature collection, not to the legality of the petition itself. Unless a court issues an order specifically halting the initiative, signature collection can continue.
When would Kenyans actually vote on this, if it gets that far?
Only after signatures are verified, county assemblies approve it, and Parliament passes it. Given the stages involved, officials and analysts following the process do not expect a referendum question to reach the ballot before 2027 at the earliest, even in an optimistic scenario.
Why do the Senate and Women Representative seats feature in the proposal?
Omondi’s team argues these positions duplicate representation already provided by MPs and MCAs, and that removing them alongside the county cuts would produce the biggest wage-bill savings.
For more on the current shape of Kenyan politics, see 254.ke’s coverage of Matiang’i taking over as Jubilee Party leader from Uhuru, the High Court ruling on Kenya’s 2026 election date, and the history of past reform failures in Karua’s account of why the Wako Draft failed.
The full text of Article 257 is available via the Kenya Law Reform Commission.
