Nairobi, September 22- Consumer Federation of Kenya (COFEK) Secretary General Stephen Mutoro has rejected a demand by Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa to remove social media posts concerning his academic qualifications and pay KSh100 million in damages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barasa\u2019s lawyers, led by Danstan Omari, issued Mutoro with a two-hour ultimatum on September 21, 2026, demanding that he delete and retract publications they described as defamatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lawyers accused Mutoro of making statements between September 14 and 21 that allegedly sought to damage Barasa\u2019s reputation and warned that legal action would follow if he failed to comply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mutoro has declined to retract the posts, maintaining that his concerns relate to questions surrounding Barasa\u2019s academic records and should be addressed through the appropriate legal process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He argued that the issues he raised were based on what he described as inconsistencies in documents relating to Barasa\u2019s academic progression and amounted to public-interest scrutiny rather than defamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mutoro further challenged Barasa to take the matter to court, saying he would defend his position using the documents available to him. He also indicated that, should Barasa proceed with legal action, he would file a counterclaim seeking KSh500 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dispute follows questions raised by COFEK regarding Barasa\u2019s academic history, including claims that he obtained an engineering degree from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JKUAT said in a September 14 letter to COFEK that Barasa\u2019s name does not appear in its alumni records and that a Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering certificate bearing his name was not genuine. The university also said it had previously shared the findings with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Engineers Board of Kenya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barasa has denied studying engineering at JKUAT. He has stated that he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration from Mount Kenya University in 2021 and a Master of Arts in Public Administration and Management in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also says he was provisionally admitted to a doctoral programme in Public Administration at Murang\u2019a University of Technology in January 2023 and subsequently completed the required academic stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Barasa, the university confirmed in June 2026 that he had fulfilled the requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Administration, pending formal conferment at the next graduation ceremony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The academic dispute is now tied to the legal battle between Barasa and COFEK, with the MP\u2019s lawyers demanding KSh100 million and Mutoro maintaining that he will not withdraw his questions over the records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nairobi, September 22- Consumer Federation of Kenya (COFEK) Secretary General Stephen Mutoro has rejected a demand by Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa to remove social media posts concerning his academic qualifications and pay KSh100 million in damages. Barasa\u2019s lawyers, led by Danstan Omari, issued Mutoro with a two-hour ultimatum on September 21, 2026, demanding that he delete and retract publications they described as defamatory. The lawyers accused Mutoro of making statements between September 14 and 21 that allegedly sought to damage Barasa\u2019s reputation and warned that legal action would follow if he failed to comply. Mutoro has declined to retract the posts, maintaining that his concerns relate to questions surrounding Barasa\u2019s academic records and should be addressed through the appropriate legal process. He argued that the issues he raised were based on what he described as inconsistencies in documents relating to Barasa\u2019s academic progression and amounted to public-interest scrutiny rather than defamation. Mutoro further challenged Barasa to take the matter to court, saying he would defend his position using the documents available to him. He also indicated that, should Barasa proceed with legal action, he would file a counterclaim seeking KSh500 million. The dispute follows questions raised by COFEK regarding Barasa\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4257,"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions\/4257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.moradiofm.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}