Teresa Njoroge, a banker, was going about her routine business in April 2008 when a man approached her and requested a three-step cash withdrawal.
He wanted about Ksh 10 million transferred to another bank branch, and Njoroge, who had done this before, observed nothing peculiar and approved the transaction.
“My branch manager also had to approve it. Also present is the manager of the other branch. We all approved, and everything was in place and in order,” she said.
However, this transaction resulted in her spending eight months in the Lang’ata Women Maximum Security Prison.
The man who started the transaction was not the account’s owner, and two weeks later, the genuine owner discovered that his money had gone missing.
“It was puzzling because six bank workers had approved the transaction at each stage till payment. The bank could have proven that the client withdrew the money, but security did not have the footage,” she explained.
Several months later, Njoroge was detained and instructed to carry the cross for the other staff involved.
She was brought to Lang’ata Women’s Prison with her three-month-old daughter and served for eight months.
“I honestly assumed I’d get justice, even though the arresting officer made a tremendous error. I informed him that he had the wrong individual. I didn’t take the money or swindle the bank, but he insisted and admitted that he had the wrong person,” she noted.
Vanessa Nekesa: Atwoli’s Daughter Who Became a CEO at 17
While serving her sentence, Njoroge, who had been wrongfully convicted of the financial crime, understood that many of the women in prison were not criminals.
“70% of the ladies present were not true offenders. They were impoverished and illiterate. Victims of a flawed system and society have profiled inmates. We had criminalised poverty,” she said.
These sentiments inspired her to launch Clean Start, an organisation that seeks to empower women in jail, once she had served her sentence.
Njoroge was released from prison in November 2011, but the courts did not withdraw the theft accusations until February 2013, after determining that she had been unfairly convicted.
Teresa has since received global acclaim for her exceptional work.
In May 2019, she received the Global Thinkers Forum’s Excellence Award for African Female Leadership.
Aside from that, she has hosted a Ted Talk, and on June 1, Njoroge was one of five Kenyans chosen to participate in the Ford Global Fellowship, which is run by the Ford Foundation, an American private foundation dedicated to enhancing human happiness.
“Pain has a purpose, and it comes to you for a reason. There’s something nice about it. If only you changed your attitude,” she says.
