Shady social media personality who almost worked for ODM

There was a phenomenon on Facebook ahead of the August 2017 General Election.

It came in the form of a woman who posted arguments that most supporters of the National Super Alliance (Nasa) agreed with and which sympathisers of the Jubilee Party berated.

She used the name Dorcas Sarkozy on the social networking site.

An enigma of sorts, she hardly revealed her face, and she often did not mention her location.

On photos where her face was seen, it was only captured from the side and it showed a pretty, light-skinned woman.

Her posts were a break from the brief, casual write-ups that the users of the social network often upload.

POST

A typical post from her would have a headline followed by well-articulated arguments that were often accompanied by photos of book pages — to show readers that the thoughts expressed there had been well-researched and had a backing of the intelligentsia.

The mystery, the beauty, and the pithy posts made Dorcas Sarkozy’s popularity soar.

“Friends”, “followers” and all the masses that are Facebook currency could not get enough of her posts.

In fact, the Sunday Nation has learnt that, given her apparent brilliance, senior figures at the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party wanted to incorporate her in the communications team because of the potential she had shown to argue in support of the party’s leader Raila Odinga.

In July 2018, Dorcas reached out to this reporter, seeking to respond to a Sunday Nation article by Levin Opiyo headlined "Retracing Tom Mboya’s last days".

REACTION

She was advised on the address to send her reaction to. The response article, titled "The deliberate and witting sanitization of the assassination of Tom Mboya", did not come from Dorcas, however.

It was e-mailed by one Washington Osiro, a resident of the US. It was not published.

How does Dorcas promise to write a piece then Mr Osiro finally delivers it? We will come to that later.

It is now emerging that beneath that veneer of a polished woman who wrote lengthy articles on a daily basis on any topic — from political analyses to historical topics to homicides and anything in between — was an operation after more than just airing opinions.

That is the reason the account has been missing since Tuesday, when it was a trending topic as a number of people spoke of the ugly, hitherto hidden side of Dorcas Sarkozy.

Sunday Nation on Saturday called Dorcas through the Airtel line she has been using to communicate with various people interacting with her Facebook account. She declined a physical meeting or video call. She told the Sunday Nation that the account was suspended by Facebook to confirm her identification details because it “had been reported that it is fake and all that”.

SUSPENDED ACCOUNT

However, law researcher Innocent Ngare, who has been digging up the identity of Dorcas and whose Facebook account has been suspended before, poked holes at the Facebook suspension narrative.

A suspended account, he said, can be seen by others who are connected with the Facebook user.

Dorcas’ account cannot be seen by anyone at the moment. She showed us e-mails apparently sent by Facebook (though she failed to forward the original messages, only sending screenshots) asking her to send her national ID or any other identification document.

“I’ve given them out and they say they’re looking into it. It normally takes about 14 days then you get an e-mail,” she said.

The controversy regarding the Dorcas Sarkozy account was triggered by a December 28 post by Silas Jakakimba, which read: “Who is Dorcas Sarkozy?”

It invited more than 2,000 responses, and one of the respondents was city lawyer Stephen Ogolla, who posted that Dorcas had conned him out of at least Sh500,000.

Mr Ogolla discussed the matter at length with the Sunday Nation on Friday but chose to have all his observations off-record.

The comment by Mr Ogolla’s revelation brought many people to the fore, with claims that Drocas might have taken advantage of the men who were interested in “learning more” about her and conned them out of money.

JUBILEE PARTY

Mr Ngare told the Sunday Nation that one of the people who lost money through Dorcas’ account works in a top Jubilee Party office. The man reportedly lost millions and is now struggling financially.

Dorcas denied conning anyone and demanded proof from those claiming to have been swindled.

“If someone wired money through my account, then a bank statement should reflect that. If you did it through M-Pesa, it should reflect that. So, has anyone given you that (evidence) so far?” she posed.

Some of the people who claim to have lost money through Dorcas’ account say she would send a motorcyclist to pick up the cash, and as such it is hard to track the transactions.

DISMISSED CLAIMS

Dorcas laughed off those claims.

“Can you give Sh2 million to just a rider?” she posed.

“I have realised I had haters on Facebook than what I expected.”

She said she is the one who has been giving out money. She gave two examples where she helped Facebook contacts raise money for emergency expenditure.

BBI

Her reasoning is that the controversy is because she had openly opposed the Building Bridges Initiative and a question she recently posted that read: “What do we have to lose when we support (Deputy President William) Ruto?” She claimed that after the post, a person allied to ODM told her that “it will be noisy and messy” and then later, Mr Jakakimba’s post came up.

“Why is it that Mr Jakakimba, the person who is next to Raila, is the one who came up with such a thing?” she posed.

“There is nothing political in this,” said Mr Jakakimba Saturday.

“Ask her for a one-on-one interview. Let me know if she turns up,” added the former personal assistant of Mr Odinga.

Mr Jakakimba has made previous efforts to have a face-to-face meeting with Dorcas, but has never succeeded. A number of people have also complained that Dorcas promised one-on-one meetings but never turned up.

MYSTERY

Dorcas said she treasures that air of mystery.

“When you become mysterious, you make people eager to get to learn who this person is. And all of them have a different view of who you are. Learn that strategy; you’ll find it working in your job,” she told this reporter.

The Sunday Nation can report that a number of posts made on the Dorcas Sarkozy account were written from the US by Washington Osiro, the man who wrote the rebuttal on Tom Mboya.

In a video interview on Friday, Mr Osiro told us that he works as a biotechnology consultant. He admitted authoring some of the Dorcas Sarkozy posts.

“Yes, I collaborated with the Facebook profile ‘Dorcas Sarkozy’ on many of the articles that posted onto her wall,” he said in an e-mail.