Congratulations on your new post at NTV as the crime editor. But why have you moved with the same name ‘Jicho Pevu’?

Jicho Pevu is my brand and registered under my name. I can move with it wherever I go.

Don’t you think people will still associate it with KTN?

I know people will do that at the beginning. The most important thing is that I will up my game. Crime trends have changed and I have to follow that and people will get used to it.

John Allan Namu credits you for encouraging him to pursue deep investigative stories. How does it feel now that you are going to work with him again?

It’s the re-union that I have been waiting for. I don’t look at Namu as a colleague, but a brother. We understand each other very well, he is a good listener and someone who loves working with people. We shall pick up from where we left and do some of the biggest stories yet.

Every time you do a big story you go underground, why?

It is so painful that I have to leave the country after telling Kenyans the truth. I have recently sought refuge in Germany and Norway especially after the drugs and the Artur Brothers stories.

At what point do you have to leave the country?

I have sources everywhere and if they hear that there is something being planned against me, they tell me immediately. At that point, I organise with my employer to leave the country as fast as possible.

How does that work?

My employer calls the embassy here in Nairobi, explains the situation and our visas are processed within minutes. Then when we travel, the Foreign Affairs ministry of the country that will host us takes care of us when we land. They usually treat us with a lot of respect and sometimes organise with their local media houses to allow us to continue with our work from their country.

Tell me about the phone that you allegedly stole.

That was a case that was supposed to brand me as a criminal. They said I evaded police arrest for eight months after I stole a Nokia phone worth Sh120,000. I use an iPhone now and it doesn’t cost that much, so the price was exaggerated. And why would they fail to arrest me for eight months and I was on TV every day? I’m a journalist and the police knew where to find me.

So why would they try to brand you as a criminal?

I was doing a story on the Artur Brothers and they didn’t want me to connect it to State House. When I refused to drop the story or remove the State House angle, the plan was to brand me as a criminal for people to discredit my stories. However, my employer stood by my side of the story and the case was dropped when the story went on air.

Do you always release all the information that you get in a story?

Of course not, we always have back up, which can be used in future just in case somebody wants to incriminate you.

I’m sure your family is very worried about you?

Like everybody else, they are worried, especially my mother. But I never involve them anywhere in my work. I know how to separate work and family. I have to do what I have to do. Again, every time I do a story that changes lives or situations, I’m happy. It’s an addiction not a job.

Exactly why did you choose to do investigative stories?

My life story explains it all. I was born in a very well-off family, but something bad happened along the way. We moved from a posh and comfortable house to the slums. The experience of slum life changed how I look at life.

Where was this?

I was born in Isiolo. My dad, who died in 2007, had a very good job at the then Kenya Canners in Thika, now Del Monte. We lived well, I got anything I wanted and I remember the big cars too. While in Class Four, things changed all of a sudden and we moved to the Kiandutu slums. It’s like moving from Muthaiga to Kibera slums.

How does that affect your job now?

I experienced injustices first-hand. When somebody tells me now that they have been wrongfully arrested, their relatives have been killed, their land grabbed or they simply can’t get an ID, I feel their pain.

I wanted to join the military or the Kenya police, I qualified several times, but I couldn’t get in because I didn’t have money to bribe the officials. I couldn’t get an ID easily because immigration officials kept on telling me that I look like an Ethiopian. But it was just the issue of bribe. So who will listen to anyone without money?

How did you join the media?

I loved the media since high school. After college in 2003, I joined Pwani FM in Mombasa, where I worked for eight months without pay. Can you imagine somebody was pocketing my money? It was very frustrating. After a year, I decided to quit media and went to Saudi Arabia.

What did you do there?

Just ordinary jobs, including working in coffee shops as a waiter. But I got tired of that too and returned to Kenya in 2006. I got a job at a new radio station in Mombasa, Radio Salaam, where I worked for a few months before KTN employed me.

Did you start with crime stories immediately?

Yes, I told them I was interested in doing crime stories. They sent me to do a story with Namu during a police operation in Mathare slums to flush out Mungiki members. That story made me change how I look at reporting now.

What changed?

All the stations that evening reported how the police killed members of the outlawed sect, but none reported how innocent women and children were mishandled by the same police. I was there, I saw it all and it really pained me.

I made a choice to fight for the voiceless. While most journalists look at two sides of a story, I look at three; side A, side B and the truth. My work is to question and look for the truth, and that’s why the police don’t like me very much. If they did, I wouldn’t be running away after doing a story.

Some people think that you either fabricate or act too much

What I know is that in acting, people don’t die. There are people who don’t understand crime and I am not shocked people would say that. There is no acting in what I do. I talk about real issues, people who have just been killed and their relatives are about to bury them or they have already done that.

If a senior person wrote a letter to so and so, I produce the letter. If somebody was shot 12 times, I produce the post-mortem report. There is no acting. If I wanted to act, I would do a TV drama like CSI Miami. I welcome critics, but not those who don’t understand what they are criticising.

Would you consider running for a political seat?

I’m under a lot of pressure right now to do so. But I don’t think I’m ready now. When I am, I will not even run for a parliamentary seat, but for president. That is where I can make changes.

You got married last year. What does your wife say about your job?

She is okay with it and she encourages me a lot.

Is there anything that can make you stop doing what you do?

I have tried many times but I just can’t stop doing this job. After every story, I always find like 50 envelopes of stories that are waiting for me to investigate. That’s how I live.

Source:http://www.nation.co.ke/Features/buzz/Mohammed+Ali+This+is+my+addiction/-/441236/1459664/-/view/printVersion/-/ifvteb/-/index.html