A Facebook account bearing the name and photos of Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja does not belong to him.
The account, with close to 5,000 friends, has been offering loans to its followers with “instant” disbursement to their M-Pesa accounts.
An overview of the account shows that the owner started studying at the University of Nairobi in 2023 and works at “Politics, Philosophy and Economics”.
In some instances, the account has been accompanying its loan messages with screenshots of mobile money transactions to “prove” loan disbursements.
Some of the screenshots show balances of over Ksh500,000, which is not possible in Kenya.
The Central Bank of Kenya allowed Safaricom to increase M-Pesa accounts limit to Ksh500,000, meaning no M-Pesa account can hold more than Ksh500,000.
The account made its first post on August 9, 2023, indicating that the user had moved to Gachie in Nairobi.
On the other hand, Sakaja, who has previously served as a Senator for Nairobi, runs a verified Facebook page that frequently updates his followers on his activities.
Sajaja’s verified page has over 807,000 followers and is named Sakaja Johnson, as compared to the account named Hon Johnson Sakaja.
The verified page also has contact information which includes an email ([email protected]).
The authentic page also shows that it has been in existence since October 10, 2014, and its name has never been changed.
The verified page has not invited its followers to apply for loans, meaning the information posted on the other account is not from Sakaja.
The Facebook account bearing the name and photos of Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja and inviting its followers to apply for loans is, therefore, fake.
This fact check was published by Business Today with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck and African Fact-Checking Alliance.
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