Former Al-Jazeera journalist wins MP seat in Kenya

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission [IEBC] declared Mohamed Adow as the MP-elect for the Wajir South constituency. During his tenure as a journalist, he was mostly at loggerheads with authorities in the country.

A couple of years ago, authorities in South Sudan expelled him from the country when he reported anti-government protests within the capital, Juba. Similarly, he was in trouble with authorities in Kenya when he produced a documentary on discrimination in the northern part of the country

In another documentary that he made for Al Jazeera, “Not Yet Kenyan”, he returned to the region to see how its people had survived and started to prosper, only to find that Kenya's intervention in Somalia and the actions of Al-Shabaab were threatening to throw the region into turmoil again, the Nation Africa reports.

In his comprehensive reviews on Al-Jazeera, Adow is also on record for exposing fighters in the Somali region of Ethiopia who were fighting for secession within Eastern Ethiopia. The Somali region has a history with Somalia.

“This election has been framed. It’s about ideas and long-lasting policies that will replenish the full potential of Wajir south in all its spheres. We are united on a common goal – a better and developed Wajir south,” he wrote on a social media platform.

During the elections in Wajir South, voters indeed turned up and elected the journalist as their MP, giving him 13,990 votes. His closest competitor, Mohamud Muhumed Sirat, received 7,545 votes.

“This evening I attended a football tournament in Habaswein town and realized the boys need someone to uplift them in showcasing their untapped talents,” Mr. Adow (ODM) said in another post on social media.

Mohamed Adow started his media career as a Garissa correspondent for Daily Nation in 1996, he later joined British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Nairobi and Ethiopia as a World Service Correspondent.

In 2006, he joined Qatar-based Al Jazeera as Africa Correspondent before he was transferred to Doha as a World correspondent in Africa and the Middle East and Europe in 2017 for the same media house.