Is your name really Sakaja? Igathe asks during heated debate
Senator Johnson Sakaja on Monday maintained that his degree from Team University is legitimate and that his academic credentials have been verified in Kenya and Uganda.
Sakaja was responded to queries about his academic credentials from his main rival Polycarp Igathe during the Nairobi gubernatorial debate at at the Catholic University for Eastern Africa (CUEA).
Senator Sakaja, who arrived late for the debate, had been forced to address the elephant in the room; his academic credentials, which have sparked heated debate both online and offline.
“Go to the website of EACC, to the website of IEBC, check the university Sakaja cited as his degree in 2017. It’s a public document. Then look at the degree he’s saying he did today. We don’t even know who he is. Is your name really Sakaja? Igathe asked.
But in his response, agitated Sakaja said he has all the qualifications to run for governor of Nairobi.
“I have the competence, the character, will and experience to lead the county of Nairobi. Integrity is not perfection, integrity is not pontification, integrity is not saying you’ll not make any mistakes,” Sakaja said.
“That is the reason I’m here, that is why I have been gazetted, I do have all the qualifications required to run for Governor of Nairobi, including the competence and character to lead this County,” he went on.
But in a rebuttal, Igathe said, “I’ll tell you what is not integrity – it is uttering false documents and then standing here and saying I have integrity.”
To which Sakaja quickly responded, “I have a degree from Team University, I have presented it to commissions in Uganda and here, most people say I have tried to prove too hard I have a degree, it is my detractors trying to prove too hard that I don’t.”
Sakaja who made headlines over claims of a fake degree, was cleared on June 19, 2022 after IEBC’s Dispute Resolution Committee threw out a petition that was challenging his nomination, stating that it lacked jurisdiction to determine the validity of the senator’s university degree.
Consequently, he has been cleared to run in the Nairobi gubernatorial race.