There has been controversy over the education credentials of Johnson Sakaja. Claims suggest that he doesn’t have a degree.
The public profile of Johnson Sakaja shows that he was born in Nairobi in 1985, in the then government quarters in Parklands as a last born in a family of three siblings. His leadership qualities were apparent very early on.
Sakaja Johnson attended Aga Khan Nursery and Primary School up to 1998. In the year 1999, he joined Lenana School for his secondary education.
At Lenana, Sakaja was the prefects’ coordinator as well as the law society vice-chairman. During his days at Lenana, he was at one time the best in public speaking in Kenya during the National Music Festivals through a topic titled “My Country Kenya”.
Thereafter, he joined University of Nairobi, after failing to raise the fees to join Harvard University despite passing the entry exams, where he claimed to have graduated with a degree in Actuarial Science. However, the University of Nairobi says that he is still a student and has never graduated since enrolling in 2003.
The Commission for University Education (CUE) says that in 2022, Sakaja presented a degree from a Ugandan university for regularisation and approval by the IEBC.
He applied to CUE asking the commission to ascertain the accreditation status of Team University in Uganda where he had graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Management. According to the degree certificate the senator is said to have presented to CUE, he graduated on October 21, 2016.
However, a booklet from the institution for the graduation ceremony that took place in October 2016 does not contain Mr Sakaja’s name among the six BSC (Management) graduands.
The University then wrote to CUE and said that Sakaja attended the programme online. The qualifications were also confirmed by the Uganda National Council for Higher Education.
Sakaja also claimed that he landed his first job at the age of 19 years at Pricewatercoopers (PwC). After losing the job, a year later, he worked at a cyber cafe with his aunt and in the process started producing music.
He developed an interest in rapping and wrote up several songs but never followed through to record and release the songs. He however worked with a gospel musical group called Mission Driven.
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During his life in campus, Sakaja claims that set up various businesses and ended up setting up a financial consultancy firm, Arthur Johnson Consultants, during his fourth year in campus. The firm is still actively running.