Johnson Sakaja, a Nominated MP, ventured into national politics through student politics at the University of Nairobi in the mid-2000s.
The former National Chairman of the defunct TNA burst into the national limelight after delivering a powerful speech during the highly-publicised The National Alliance party launch in 2012.
During the launch, Sakaja said, “We are not looking for those with millions of shillings in the bank, but for those with millions of ideas in the mind.”
It was at this time that Sakaja became a darling to many, especially the youth, and his closeness to President Uhuru Kenyatta was indisputable.
The 32-year-old studied Actuarial Science at UoN, and later pursued Political Economics. He joined the deep and murky waters of Kenyan politics during the 2005 referendum and also played a key role in the 2007 re-election of former President Mwai Kibaki.
Sakaja was born in Ngara Estate in Nairobi and went to Aga Khan Primary and Lenana High schools where he excelled.
In a Facebook post, he claims to have started his political career at the age of five after his father tried to make him repeat pre-school.
“I held a one-man demonstration in the house with a placard that I had written “No Class One, No School,” Sakaja says.
His political career took off in 2007 when he joined Kibaki’s campaign team as a driver where he was involved in various political strategies that earned him respect among the president’s men.
“After dropping off the big men, I would always drive to college with the four-wheel vehicle, which gave me a lot of perceptional mileage among my fellow students. But while in the campaigns, I also played other key roles, including setting up the PNU tallying centre,” Sakaja explains.
He met Uhuru Kenyatta while working for PNU.
The two worked together on various projects when Uhuru was the Minister of Finance.
He became President Uhuru Kenyatta’s key strategists when he was preparing for his presidential bid in 2012.
Sakaja came up with the idea of Uhuru dumping KANU for TNA after plans to rebrand KANU failed.
Quoted by the Standard, Sakaja said: “We came up with the slogan “I Believe” with the specific intentions of creating a sense of self-belief, especially among the youth and those who were not where they wanted to be in life. The dove was meant to signify a take-off since we have been crawling on the ground with the KANU cockerel for too long. This, we correctly predicted, would create a national mass movement.”
The father of two is very guarded when asked about his relationship with the president saying, “To me he is both an elder brother and a father figure, which means we can talk about many issues outside politics since he is a good conversationalist. He is also my boss and he is a no-nonsense man when it comes to matters of national importance. I am glad he believes in the youth potential, which is reflected on his appointments”.
Besides politics Johnson Sakaja is also a businessman.
He is the founder of Arthur Johnson Consulting which he started while still at the university. He has diversified his interests to farming, transport and steel.
He is also a guitarist and a former member of Mission Driven, a gospel band.
On New Year’s eve last year, Sakaja thrilled the audience at KICC when he took to the stage and performed some of the songs they had done.
Sakaja says he met his wife in high school and he credits her for the opening speech he gave during the launch of TNA saying he wrote it with her.
“She’s an excellent writer. She’s a marketer. She was doing accounts before, she was number one in the country during her year but despite all that, she is now keeping our home and, of course, doing other biasharas,” he says quoted by Business Daily.
Sakaja has written a book on devolution, The Operational Framework for Fiscal Decentralisation. He says he designed a mathematical formula to be used in allocating constituencies to the various regions of the country.
“The formula was so water-tight that and well thought out that it was wholly adopted in the Constitution as Article 89,” he says.