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Ugandan Govt Launches Sakaja Degree Probe, To Release Findings Soon

Fridah Wangechi | 1 year ago
Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja. PHOTO: The People Daily
Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja. PHOTO: The People Daily

Despite Nairobi senator's Johnson Sakaja victory against in his dramatic  degree saga, the Ugandan government has now announced that investigations into the authenticity of the degree certificate awarded by Team University have commenced.

Ugandan daily publication New Vision revealed that the country's National Council of Higher Education (NCHE) has confirmed that Team University was now under investigation over the senator's degree and would release findings soon as the council is in its final stages of the probe.

“Let us finalise our investigations and everyone will know. We cannot share anything now until the investigations are complete,” NCHE Executive Director Mary Okwakol stated.

The release of the findings is in response to a letter from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to Uganda's first lady Janet Museveni who doubles up as the Minister of Education and Sports, seeking to have the senator's degree investigated after concerns regarding validity and authenticity of his academic credentials arose.

The investigations agency had began its own investigations into the same after suspecting that Sakaja might have acquired the degree certificate fraudulently in a bid to acquire clearance from the IEBC to vie for Nairobi's gubernatorial seat, which could have led to his indictment for forgery.

Kenya's Commission for University Education(CUE) was forced to withdraw a letter revoking recognition of the senator's degree certificate after Sakaja filed a contempt of court case against the commission for its failure to withdraw the revocation letter as ordered by the High Court.

CUE had demanded that the embattled senator produce various items to back his claims that indeed he was a student at the institution, including his Team University student’s identification card, admission letter, a copy of graduation list, a graduation photo and any other evidence, showing that he attended classes and graduated at the university.

Teams University is yet to comment on the actuality of Sakaja's study record and graduation in Bachelor of Science Management degree as he claims.

The New Vision also reported that a former university student pursuing the same course revealed that Sakaja was not among the students who graduated in 2016 as he claims.

"We didn't have online studies at the time and when we graduated in October 21,2016, we were only six students. I know them because we are classmates," noted the student.

Mr Sakaja has since been cleared by the IEBC to run for the Nairobi governorship under the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party in the Kenya Kwanza Alliance awaiting the report.

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