EACC boss hits out at gubernatorial candidates with ‘fake’ degrees
Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) Chief Executive Twalib Mbarak has questioned the academic credentials of some of the candidates eyeing elective seats in the August 2022 polls.
Mbarak also criticized some candidates whom he did not name, for shouting about their innocence when they were using what he termed forged documents.
He spoke at a consultative forum between the commission and religious leaders in Nairobi.
“In this country, you have people with fake papers and they have the guts to come and abuse institutions, chest-thumping saying that they have degrees. How can you have a degree and you don’t know your classmate? If you ask them to mention one classmate of yours, they don’t know,” he observed.
Mbarak argued that the candidates would have been disqualified if such cases were to occur in the United States of America (USA) or United Kingdom (UK).
The sentiments come with a number of candidates’ academic qualifications in the spotlight.
They include Nairobi Gubernatorial candidate Johnson Sakaja, Wavinya Ndeti (Machakos), and Granton Samboja (Taita Taveta Governor) whose degree certificates have been publicly questioned.
In the case of Sakaja, his Team University degree certificate from Uganda attracted the wrath of the Commission of Universities (CUE), which revoked the certificate as it promised to probe the issue.
However, Sakaja moved to court to protest the step taken by the commission, saying that he was innocently abused in public without any proof.
CUE withdrew its revocation letter pending an investigation that is being carried out by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
Sakaja, who is contesting on a United Democratic Alliance (UDA) ticket has blamed President Uhuru Kenyatta for his political woes.