Veteran Kenyan Investigative journalist John-Allan Namu has been making headlines following his new documentary that exposed the circulation of counterfeit fertilizer across the country.
African Uncensored’s expose titled “Fertile Deception” which saw Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi label him as a ‘crook’ while speaking to the press on March 31, 2024, involved a deep investigation into public procurement since 2018.
Namu is the CEO and co-founder of Africa Uncensored and boasts over 18 years of experience in the field of journalism.
The veteran journalist’s journalism career includes 17 spent working on investigative documentaries which inspired him to co-found Africa Uncensored.
Namu who specializes in investigative and Human-Interest Feature Reporting kickstarted his journalism career after earning a Bachelor of Arts, Journalism, and Integrated Studies degree from the United States International University (USIU) in 2006.
He also holds an Executive master’s in media leadership and Innovation from the Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications where he graduated in February 2024.
Career
John-Allan joined the Kenya Television Network (KTN) in 2005 where he worked as an editor, Investigative Reporter and News Anchor up to 2015.
He was the special projects editor at KTN, heading a team of the country’s best television investigative journalists.
Allan Namu is famous for his investigative documentary titled the Inside Story/ Jicho Pevu (Swahili), in which he partnered with current Nyali Member of Parliament Mohammed Ali.
Following his resignation from mainstream media, John-Allan co-founded Africa Uncensored, an investigative media house focusing mostly on in-depth documentaries.
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It also works on other projects such as fact-checking and short explainers on their sub-domains such as Piga Firimbi and Wizileaks.
Besides the Inside Story, Namu has worked on some of Kenya’s most daring investigations touching on powerful government figures as well as prominent Kenyans.
The documentaries include ‘Pandora Papers: The Kenyatta’s Secret Companies’, The Profiteers and Justice be our shield: The Mavoko 3 murders.
The ‘Pandora Papers: The Kenyatta’s Secret Companies’ documentary exposed secret companies owned by the family of former President Uhuru Kenyatta.
It was released in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) from the leaked Pandora Papers.
The Profiteers on the other hand exposed how certain members of South Sudan’s elite have plundered their nation while profiting from the civil war and, all the while investing in several East African countries including Kenya.
Namu on founding Africa Uncensored
While responding to questions on why he opted out of mainstream media having worked for a couple of years, Namu said that he always aimed at being a master of his destiny.
“You just want to be able to tell stories the way you want to tell them or influence journalism in a certain direction. Other than that, you could tell that there had been a shift from the early to mid-2010s, a downwards shift in terms of professionalism within the mainstream media where there were instances of censorship and victimization,” he told Reuters.
Since founding Africa Uncensored, Namu has worked as the CEO and Editorial Director bringing together Kenya’s best Investigative Journalists, keen on producing high quality, incisive investigative documentaries, news pieces, articles and podcasts from across Africa.
Also, the company has been credited for having positively influenced the journalism profession in Kenya by training and mentoring young journalists.
According to Reuters, John-Allan and Africa Uncensored have collectively trained over 700 journalists.
Awards
John-Allan has received numerous awards for his investigative work including joint journalist of the year at the 2015 and 2017’s Annual Journalism Excellence (AJEA) Awards by the Media Council of Kenya.
He has also been named CNN African Journalist of the Year and was named a 2019 Global Shining Light Award finalist.
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In 2019, Namu alongside his Africa Uncensored crew including the cameramen, video editor, and graphics artist, won the 2019 Trace International Award at a gala held in Vancouver, Canada for their ‘The Profiteers’ exposé.
Namu also landed a deal in 2019 with M-Net’s Maisha Magic East Africa to produce a crime drama titled Kina starring celebrated singer-actor Sanaipei Tande.
However, John-Allan has on many occasions professed receiving death threats over some of the stories that he has covered.
Namu Exposes Fake Fertilizer Scandal
African Uncensored‘s latest expose which has seen him make headlines is the “Fertile Deception” which exposed the government’s circulation of counterfeit government fertilizer.
While elaborating on the genesis of his expose in an interview on Citizen TV, Namu revealed that his team at African Uncensored began working on the project as far back as November 2022.
According to him, the team initiated the project after catching wind of the story from a source who introduced him to a man involved in the counterfeit trade.
“This investigation began in late October….early November 2022. I got a leak from a source who led me to someone who had been transporting the fake product across the country. What he saw shocked him because in as much as he was being paid, he saw exactly where this fertilizer was coming from and it was going as far as Uasin Gishu and Kitui Counties and other parts of the country,” he said.
Namu then went on to mobilize his team to go and film the evidence with the determination to get to the bottom of the revelation.
The investigation included a collection of samples of the counterfeit fertilizer from different National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) depots across the country.
Later the team took them to two separate laboratories for tests, one at Egerton University and the other at a private laboratory to verify whether the result they were seeing was the same.
John-Allan added that the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) confirmed their findings just days before the explosive documentary aired.
The veteran journalist appeared before the Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday, April 3, 2024, as a witness to the fake fertilizer scandal.
Politicians Approach John-Allan
He revealed that some influential political leaders both inside and outside parliament reached out to him in attempts to convince him not to air an exclusive story on the scandal.
Namu further told the committee that he was ready to provide evidence about the politicians who approached him to embargo the story.
According to him, his real and very deep concern with the fake fertilizer scandal is that it was being handled as a Public Relations disaster and not a food security disaster.
“Every one of us has at least one meal in a day. We owe our livelihoods to farmers; we owe our livelihoods to the people who toil that this would be so casually treated by people as high up as the CS,” said Namu.
He further noted that the issue was not supposed to be handled as a political issue.
