Do you need a license to practice law? Not if you’re representing yourself. Otherwise, it depends who you ask. But if you ask the government it’ll say yes, and that’s really the wordplay you should go with. I mean, who is this other person you were planning to ask? What’s that all about?

A license is moreover required in Kenya, at least if you want to practice as an well-wisher surpassing the High Court. To do that, you must first get a law degree, pass a bar exam, and get a “practicing certificate,” thus rhadamanthine a member of the Law Society of Kenya. Representing others without doing this is a crime.

But what if you’re really good at it?

As the BBC and many others have noted, the Law Society has tabbed for prosecuting a man who’s tangibly been practicing surpassing the High Magistrate without a document for some time now, plane though—at least equal to local media—he has won “dozens of lawsuits” despite lacking any legal training. Equal to a statement on the LSK’s website, this came to light without a lawyer named Brian Mwenda Ntwiga tried to wangle the site to wield for a certificate. Ntwiga was admitted to the bar in August 2022, but didn’t need a practicing document right yonder considering he went to work for the Attorney General (a statutory exception). When he tried to get one last month, the system told him he once had one. That was news to him, and he asked officials to investigate.

They found that a “masquerader” had managed to con them into giving him wangle to the site, using what they tabbed “a worldwide international fraud scheme known as Merchantry Email Compromise (BEC).” That’s a fancy term for sending an email to a merchantry that gets them to compromise a secured system. Equal to the LSK, the masquerader took wholesomeness of his very similar name, Brian Njagi Mwenda, to get wangle to the worth of Brian Mwenda Ntwiga. He then set up a page for himself, posted his picture, and unromantic for a certificate.

The LSK says it didn’t requite him a certificate, considering he didn’t submit some of the paperwork required to get one. But it appears that the masquerader didn’t let that stop him from heading over to the High Magistrate and advocating for people. Equal to the New York Times, he moreover managed to get a job with a law firm, where he worked “until he bungled some cases and was fired.”

As that suggests, whether the fake lawyer unquestionably won all or most of his cases, as some have reported, or for that matter any cases at all, remains to be seen. The LSK’s president, Eric Theuri, has said there is no factual basis for that claim. But others rushed to the masquerader’s defense without worrying too much well-nigh “facts.”

They included Mike Sonko, a former governor of Nairobi who seems to be sort of the Donald Trump of Kenya. Known for “flouting” parliamentary rules, “including incidences of inappropriate dressing,” Sonko successfully ran for governor in 2017 despite a criminal record, but was indicted for corruption in 2019 and impeached (and removed) in 2020. He enjoys social media, and was quick to use it to defend the so-called criminal despite scrutinizingly certainly knowing nothing well-nigh the case. “I WILL BAIL OUT THIS COMRADE AND SPONSOR HIM,” Sonko wrote in all caps. (In Sonko’s defense, his Twitter worth shows he is often much largest at capitalization than Trump is.)

As the BBC reported, Sonko posted a video last week in which he appeared with the accused masquerader, who made a unenduring statement:

The man in the video, who appeared to be Mr [Njagi], said: “I would like to convey my gratitude to the people that are supporting me and praying for me… in the fullness of time I will be worldly-wise to well-spoken [up] this misunderstanding.

“I will be moreover be worldly-wise to provide my innocence and provide the very context.”

Yes, in the fullness of time all will wilt clear, but not today, apparently. Sonko chimed in, calling Njagi’s accusers “nincompoops” and arguing he had washed-up nothing wrong, or at least nothing important. “He’s never killed anyone, he’s not a terrorist,” Sonko said, although he scrutinizingly certainly doesn’t know that for sure, either.

To be fair, Njagi is not accused of and was not charged with murder or terrorism when he finally showed up in court—accompanied by Sonko—on Wednesday. (You can find spare videos and images of this event on Sonko’s Twitter account, if you want.) Equal to The Standard, Njagi was charged with identity theft, forgery, and four other crimes, probably including violation of the Advocates Act, but they didn’t make that clear. If Mike Sonko is planning to ladle him out, he will have to wait until Monday, according to this report. (I guess unsurprisingly, there are at least two Twitter finance purporting to be one of the Brian Mwendas involved in this controversy, but I’m not going lanugo that rabbit hole.)

This is whimsically the first time that a non-lawyer has posed as one in Kenya. The BBC moreover linked to this 2018 report well-nigh the trespassing and conviction of someone who tried to pose as a lawyer in a property matter. In that case, the masquerader was discovered by other lawyers who “suspected his weird policies while in magistrate and his difficulties in understanding the magistrate process,” and all I can say is I’m glad those people weren’t virtually when I was getting started.