Fake journalist out to 'interview’ Nairobi Senator Mike Mbuvi arrested

Marshal Wanyoro Wanjeri. [Photo: Collins Kweyu/Standard]

BY GEOFFREY MOSOKU

NAIROBI; KENYA: A 28-year-old man has been arrested in Nairobi for impersonating as a journalist who wanted to ‘interview’ Nairobi senator Mike Mbuvi Sonko.

Marshal Wanyoro Wanjeri had been tracking Sonko over an unspecified story he claimed he was about to expose unless the senator meets him.

The flamboyant senator became suspicious when the man kept sending him texts in which he identified himself as Kagunda from Nation Media Group.

At one time the ‘fake journalist’ even called Sonko’s wife explaining that it was important for the senator to give him audience before he publishes the story.

“The man has been bothering me with requests for an interview for a bad story he was about to publish. He identified himself as Kagunda but his ID bears different names,” Sonko told journalists in his office and added; “I have called in the police and recorded the statement as a complainant.”

However, on Wednesday the proverbial forty days for a thief reached, when the man followed Sonko who was attending to a court matter in Kibera to his office at KICC, threatening aides who had blocked him from accessing the office.

He insisted on the urgency of seeing Sonko and even claimed to be relative of President Uhuru Kenyatta, telling the aides that he resides on State House road.

It’s at this moment, that the senator’s security requested him to produce a job ID, which he did not.

On frisking, the police found on him an ID bearing three names without the Kagunda name he had identified with. They also found him with a business card of a cameraman who works with Nation Media Group.

In an apparent attempt to secure freedom, Wanjeri confessed that he was posing as a journalist to get Sonko’s aide.
He was later arrested by police and is expected to appear in court to answer to charges of impersonation.