The Sunday Nation on December 8 hit the streets with a bold headline that thrust a Cabinet Secretary in the middle of an eye-popping land deal in the nation’s capital.
“Joho family firm in Sh9bn Talanta Stadium land deal”, said the headline.
The cover story was complete with a large headshot of Hassan Joho, the Cabinet Secretary for Mining and Blue Economy Secretary.
The story said a company linked to Joho’s family “will be paid Sh9 billion” to release a 79-acre land near the Jamhuri showground, off Nairobi’s Ngong Road.
The government wants to build a sports stadium on the land, the story said.
How did the Nation know that Joho’s family owns this land? The paper mostly cited records from the online arm of the State Law Office, Business Registration Services (BRS).
From BRS, the Nation found that several companies owned by the Joho family shared the same postal address with the company that the paper said owns the land, Aftraco Limited.
The Nation wrote that in 2011 Aftraco Limited paid Telkcom Kenya Sh152 million for the land.
But the Nation didn’t say how it came across this information. Neither did it quote a single, breathing human being on it.
Well, five years ago The Standard wrote that Joho had lost this same land to city businessman, Francis Mburu.
“Governor Joho loses Sh6 billion city property”, said the heading of a story by Geoffrey Mosoku on October 16, 2019.
The Standard story said a court arbiter had taken the land from Aftraco Limited and handed it to Mburu’s Exclusive Estates Limited. Why? Because a deal that Mburu “had entered into with a State agency to develop the property about 30 years ago gave him legitimate claim to the land.”
So, did the property revert to Joho family since 2019? The Nation didn’t say. Wait, did the Nation conduct adequate research on this land’s history?
If it turns out that the Nation was wrong, it will be because they did not go past desk research. They didn’t dig deep enough. More importantly, they didn’t speak with anyone. Never quoted a single human source.
The lesson is this: desktop research never substitutes real-person sources.
