The internet was awash on Friday with pictures of one Brian Mwenda Njagi who had been accused of masquerading as an Advocate of the High Court.
This is after the Law Society of Kenya - Nairobi Branch discovered he was neither an advocate nor a member of their branch.
Hours later, former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko took to social media to declare that he would support the accused by bailing him out and sponsoring his legal education.
"I WILL BAIL OUT THIS COMRADE & SPONSOR HIM AENDE KSL KAMA HANA DOH. This man has been masquerading as an advocate. He never went to any law school and KSL," wrote Sonko.
The Law Society of Kenya on Friday, October 13, 2023, released a statement on Mwenda Njagi saying it convened a meeting to discuss an issue relating to the identity theft of one Brian Mwenda Ntwiga.
According to the statement, Ntwiga was admitted to the bar on August 5, 2022, but did not apply for a practising certificate since he had been working at the Office of the Attorney General.
When he attempted to log in to the system in September 2023 to activate his profile, he realised he could not access the portal.
Upon inquiry, he noticed the email address associated with the account did not belong to him hence the error.
LSK noted that the masquerader (Mwenda Njagi) identified a genuine advocate status as being inactive and made contact with the secretariat to make an application for payment of his license but could not do so because the details were incorrect.
"Upon being allowed access to the account he took control of the portal and changed his profile picture, the workplace and applied and paid for the certicificate.
"However, his application was not processed since he was required to provide documents including the certificate of business incorporation which is an additional security measure which unless supplied and verified, the application cannot be processed," read the statement in part.
LSK maintained that their portal was not compromised and the data of members is 'safe and protected'.
The Council of the Law Society called upon members to stay vigilant and report any cases of masqueraders for investigation and subsequent apprehension.
