Sakaja Johnson

Sakaja’s political journey started in his days as a student at the University of Nairobi as vice chair of the Actuarial Students Association. He was later elected as the Chairman of the Student Organisation of Nairobi University in SONU. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

Sakaja Johnson (born 2 February 1985) is the current Senator of Nairobi County, following his election to the position on 8 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). He served as the National Chairman of The National Alliance (TNA) until 9 September 2016 when the party merged with 12 others to for the Jubilee Party.