Dear Kimathi Street, ‘Dr’ Sankok is a quack

Jubilee nominated MP David Sankok made a startling admission last week. In widely reported remarks following an interview with K24 TV on Wednesday, September 25, Sankok said he was fed up with being a politician.

You heard that right. A Kenya politician doesn’t want the job, si ndio? God must be answering the country’s prayers, at last. Suppose we had no politicians. The entire lot goes home and we run the country’s affairs by councils of elders.

But no, we will always have politics and politicians in society. Where two or three are gathered there is power. A sensible proposal would be that politicians don’t get paid all that money and the hefty privileges. They serve voluntarily, go back to their regular business, say, farming, lawyering, selling keg, property dealership and so on. Only paid an allowance for the sessions they sit.

But this is dreaming in broad daylight. Let’s get real. Nominated Jubilee MP Sankok wants out. His main grouse? Everyone thinks a politician is a walking ATM. People want money. Free things. They believe politicians owe them, and so on.

“Politics in Kenya is very hard. It is a very dirty game where everyone thinks you are their property. Personally, I’m not used to giving out free things. As a disabled person, I have struggled. I can’t just give out money freely,” he said.

Now, everyone can understand why politics is synonymous with corruption in Kenya. Sankok is saying there is no clean politician. To make all those people looking for you happy, you have to somehow lay your hands on hundreds of millions of shillings to dish out to them.

How does the country solve this problem? That is not for the Observer to say. There are more competent individuals and authorities to offer prescriptions.

Our concern is how the Nation reported the story. “Dr David Sankok, the Jubilee nominated MP from Narok, is particularly in his element when directing his humorous oral assaults at ODM leader Raila Odinga and one imagines he cherishes every moment of a politician’s life,” the paper reported.

Dr David Sankok? Alas, we thought this matter was settled? In May, the Observer carried an article stating that Sankok was not a medical doctor as he claimed. One of the first persons to expose the MP was veteran journalist and Nation columnist Macharia Gaitho. How come the Nation still referred to “Dr Sankok” throughout the story carried last week?

“The University of Nairobi-trained medical doctor, who runs a clinic and a hotel in Narok, has played a significant role in enactment of laws regarding physically challenged people, including government tender procurement for disabled persons, introduction of sign language as the third language in Kenya, adjustable exams and integrated system of education in Kenya.”

In 2016, the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union dismissed ‘Dr’ Sankok as a quack.

In May when the Standard wrote about “Dr Sankok”, Prof Atwoli Lukoye of Moi University asked the paper to withdraw the story and apologize to readers. “One of the biggest problems in Kenya is quackery, fakery and impersonation. Here is a person without any medical qualification passing himself off as a surgeon,” he wrote.

Lukoye is a Nation columnist and associate professor and dean of the School of Medicine at Moi University. He is vice president of Kenya Medical Association and a member of Kenya Medical Board.

“Dr Sankok” is a quack. Or is there something about him some journalists know that everyone else doesn’t?