Sakaja Johnson

Sakaja Johnson (born February 2, 2007) is the current Senator of Nairobi County, following his election to the position on the 8th August 2017 General Election in Kenya. Previously, he was a nominated Member of Parliament (National Assembly), in office since 2017. He was nominated to Parliament by The National Alliance (TNA) party which is part of the ruling Jubilee Coalition (now Jubilee party).^[1] He served as the National Chairman of The National Alliance (TNA) until September 9, 2016 when the party merged with 12 others to for the Jubilee Party.^[2]

Early life

Sakaja was born and raised in Nairobi, in the then government quarters in Parklands as a last born in a family of three siblings. He went to Aga Khan Nursery and Primary school up to 1998 and later joined Lenana School where his leadership qualities were apparent very early on.^[3] At Lenana, Sakaja was the prefects’ coordinator as well as the law society vice-chairman. During his days at Lenanna, 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 Havard despite passing the entry exams, where he graduated with a degree Actuarial Science. Sakaja 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.^[4] During his life in campus, Sakaja 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.

Political life

Sakaja’s political journey started in his days as a student at the University of Nairobi^[5] as vice chair of the Actuarial Students Association. He was later elected as the Chairman of the Student Organisation of Nairobi University in SONU.^[6] Sakaja’s first dalliance with national politics was in 2005, during the referendum for the then proposed constitution. He used his platform as a SONU leader to rally the youth at the Referendum. Thereafter, he joined the Kibaki team for 2007 elections starting off as a driver before eventually becoming the director of the Vijana na Kibaki lobby group. At the election, where he took a lead role in vote tallying support for the Presidential Secretariat. During the 2008 post-election crisis, his resolve to see a solution found resulted in him addressing President Mwai Kibaki’s Cabinet at the age of 22. It was here that he first came into contact with the current president (Uhuru Kenyatta) who was then the Minister for Local Government. He shortly moved to help with the formulation of the 2010 constitution where he took a lead role in definition of constituency boundaries, bringing his ^[7] to fore. Sakaja also worked with Uhuru Kenyatta at the Ministry of Finance where the latter was the Minister and also the Deputy Prime Minister in the then Grand Coalition Government. In various interviews, Sakaja has referred to the Uhuru Kenyatta as his personal friend, mentor and an older brother. Thereafter, at the age of 26, Sakaja helped form The National Alliance (TNA) of which he became the Chairman. This was the party that the current Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta rode to electoral victory in 2013. Aged only 27, he became the youngest Chairman of a ruling party in the world.

The National Alliance Party (TNA)

The National Alliance was founded as the National Alliance Party of Kenya on July 3, 2000 when people from varying background decided to form an alliance of democratic forces to work for the social, economic and political unity and welfare of Kenyan communities. The leaders of the communities represented at the inaugural meeting subsequently approached Mr. Lawrence Nginyo Kariuki, a prominent businessman and renowned politician to be the founding chairman of the Alliance and Mr. Kariuki consented. The Alliance has the primary objective of bringing Kenyans together, with the recognition that being united, they stand a better chance of successfully tackling the political, social and economic challenges they face. Sakaja was the founding chairman of the party with President Uhuru Kenyatta as the party leader.^[8] Other than winning the Presidency, TNA won 72 of the 290 seats during the 2013 election and also took 17 of the 47 Senate seats and 14 of the 47 Woman Representative seats. Working with Deputy President William Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) and other like-minded parties, TNA through the Jubilee Coalition formed the Majority in both the National Assembly and the Senate.

Parliament

Sakaja was seconded by TNA to the National Assembly as one of its three nominated MPs. In the National Assembly, Sakaja was seconded by Jubilee Coalition to the House Business Committee, the Joint Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity and Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade. He is currently the Chairman of the Joint Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity. Sakaja is also the Chairman of Kenya Young Parliamentary Association^[9] which is a caucus made up of MPs who are below 35 years of age.

Sakaja has served well in his role at Parliament, sponsoring two key Bills to which the President has assented to;

1. Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015 –which essentially provides for “30% Procurement Reservation Criteria” for Youth, Women and Persons with disability.
2. The National Youth Employment Authority Bill, which creates a The National Employment Authority that shall actively seek opportunities for all the jobseekers in its database both locally and internationally, and prepare them for those opportunities through capacity building programs.^[10]

Nairobi governorship race 2017

Sakaja had declared his intention to run for Nairobi City County Governor on a Jubilee Party ticket. The former Chairman of The National Alliance Party, who coined the term “I Believe” has now come back with his #IAMNAIROBI campaign.^[11] The race is now between two factions of Jubilee Party, Team Nairobi and Team PK. Team Nairobi^[12] comprises Sakaja, Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko, Dagoretti South MP Dennis Waweru and former Starehe MP Bishop Wanjiru.

Nairobi Sentaorial race 2017

He later decided to step out of the Gubernatorail race and opted to go for the Nairobi Senator seat. During the party nominations he trounced his opponents to receive the highest votes in Nairobi. He went ahead to win the Senatorial seat with an overwhelming majority.

Honours and awards

1. African Achievers Award Changemaker of the Year 2016^[13]
2. Jacob Well Award 2016 (Men Impacting Differently)^[14]

Membership and association

1. Chairman Kenya Young Parliamentarians Association^[15]
2. Patron of Kenya Professional Boxing Commission
3. Executive Member Kenya National Private Security Workers Union

References

External links

• Official Website