Matiang’i throws shade at leaders who seek court orders to validate degrees

Former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has taken a swipe at Kenyan political leaders who resort to the courts to prove their academic qualifications, saying such actions reflect a deeper decay in leadership and governance.

Speaking during a public engagement with Kenyans in Minneapolis on Monday, August 4, 2025, Matiang’i questioned how some politicians manage to get cleared to run for office despite lacking clear academic records.He criticised leaders who, despite not having classmates or teachers to vouch for them, depend on court rulings to validate their academic history.

“I am not like those people who go to court to get an order to prove that I went to school. When I was the minister for education, I used to tell people the easiest way to destroy a country begins with the people who go to court to look for orders to prove that they went to school,” Matiang’i said.

“Because how did you go to school and you do not have a classmate, you do not have a teacher, and you are depending on a judge to make a ruling that you actually went to school.”

The former CS lamented that such practices have undermined the integrity of Kenya’s education system and public offices.

“There is a way in which we have destroyed our country by doing things normal people do not do because going to school is a black-and-white situation, you either went or not,” he added.

Degree vs leadership

Although Matiang’i acknowledged that holding a degree is not necessarily a measure of good leadership, he stressed the importance of following the law.

“I used to tell people I am not the one who wrote the law. I believe you can be a good leader even if you do not have a degree, but they wrote a law in parliament that for you to be governor, you need to have a degree, so respect the law,” he stated.

“We have people who have served as governors in Kenya who did not go to university; they bought papers, they went to court, and got some orders.”

He further revealed shocking instances during his tenure as Education CS, where some candidates presented questionable academic documents.

“I was the minister for education when a candidate presented a certificate that he had attended a conference of religious leaders somewhere in South America and they gave him a certificate of participation in Spanish or Latin, then took it to the IEBC, then they cleared him when later on they found a translator. They said, ‘No, it is a certificate of participation, this is not a degree,.” he disclosed.

In another case, Matiang’i said a woman presented a PhD certificate but couldn’t explain what her thesis was.

“One candidate presented a PhD certificate that she could not even defend. When someone asked her what her thesis was, she asked, What is a thesis?” he added.