By Njeri Irungu,
December 1, 2025
Nairobi, Kenya.
A new petition submitted to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) on 27 November 2025 has reignited debate over the academic background, eligibility for office, and accountability of former NGO Coordination Board CEO and former Private Security Regulatory Authority (PSRA) Director-General Fazul Mahamed.
In the complaint, citizen Haggai Odiawo asks the EACC to explain why, despite past investigations and lingering public concerns, Fazul has allegedly continued to draw state benefits tied to the positions he previously held. Based on publicly available salary structures, Odiawo estimates that Fazul earned a cumulative KSh 56.24 million in salaries and allowances across his tenure at the NGO Board and PSRA—money he now argues should be refunded if the appointments are found to have been improperly obtained.
Although this latest petition is not the first to question Fazul’s academic history, it is one of the most pointed and arrives at a time when Kenyans are demanding stronger transparency in public appointments. Odiawo cites long-circulated claims suggesting that Fazul may have been registered at Egerton University under the name “Mahamed Yusuf,” and that he was allegedly discontinued in his third year. If accurate, he argues, these details raise legitimate concerns about whether Fazul met the qualifications required for the senior regulatory roles he later occupied.
None of the claims in Odiawo’s letter amount to findings of guilt. No court has convicted Fazul of wrongdoing relating to his academic records, and he has consistently defended his right to hold public office. Still, the controversy is difficult to detach from the documented history of official inquiries.
The petition references earlier investigations by the Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ) and the EACC, both of which—according to their public reports—flagged inconsistencies in academic documentation during his appointment to the NGO Coordination Board in 2014. In a 2016 report, CAJ noted it was unable to authenticate the degree certificate that was allegedly used in the appointment process, while the EACC also indicated challenges verifying the same certificate. Though neither inquiry resulted in criminal culpability, they formed the basis of a persistent public debate that has never fully quieted.
Fazul later went on to lead the PSRA, where he became a vocal and sometimes polarising figure in the push to overhaul Kenya’s private security industry. His term ended in 2024, but Odiawo argues that unresolved questions from earlier years continue to cast a shadow over his public service record.
At the centre of the complaint is a broader issue: the consistency and credibility of Kenya’s institutions. Odiawo is pressing the EACC for clarity on whether earlier concerns were ever conclusively addressed, and if so, on what basis. He also urges the commission to determine whether any state benefits tied to questionable appointments should be re-examined—not as a presumption of guilt but as a test of good governance.
For many Kenyans, the matter has come to represent more than one individual’s credentials. It is a measure of whether oversight bodies are prepared to close long-pending chapters with transparency or allow unresolved files to linger indefinitely.
Whether the commission will reopen the case, issue guidance, or opt not to act remains unclear. But Odiawo’s petition underscores a public appetite for accountability that has not waned—and one that may now force an institutional response nearly a decade in the making.
