A long running dispute over Kimilili MP Didmus Wekesa Barasa's academic credentials has escalated into a formal legal confrontation, after the MP's lawyers issued a two hour ultimatum demanding that Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) Secretary General Stephen Mutoro retract his social media posts and pay Sh100 million in damages, or face a defamation suit.
It is worth being clear about where matters currently stand. High Court did direct all defamation cases to be transferred to the Chief Magistrates ' Court. The Counsel opposed the transfer as the award may exceed Chief Magistrates jurisdiction. Asked to provide a case where an award exceeded 20M, they went mute. Defamation damages aren’t meant to enrich the complainants and their greedy counsels.
The demand letter, dated September 21, 2026, and signed by advocates Danstan Omari, Shadrack Wambui and Jeff Kangethe of Danstan Omari & Associates Advocates, accuses Mutoro of publishing defamatory statements and publications on Facebook and other social media platforms between September 14 and September 21, 2026.
According to the letter, Mutoro's posts portrayed Barasa's academic qualifications as questionable, fraudulent, irregular or improperly obtained, and created the impression that he was academically unqualified to pursue his doctoral studies, that he was irregularly admitted into a PhD programme unrelated to his academic background, and that his doctoral progression was inadequately supervised.
The lawyers describe those imputations as false and gravely defamatory, and demanded that all related posts be pulled down within two hours of receipt of the letter, warning that failure to comply would result in legal proceedings.
To rebut the claims, Barasa's legal team laid out a detailed account of his academic history in the letter. According to the document, Barasa sat for his KCSE at Kimilili Boys Secondary School in 2000, attaining a mean grade of B-minus. He went on to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration at Mount Kenya University under registration number BAPA/2018/36269, graduating with Second Class Honours, Upper Division, on August 6, 2021. He then completed a Master of Arts in Public Administration and Management (Public Policy), also at Mount Kenya University, conferred on December 9, 2022.
From there, the letter states, Barasa applied to Murang'a University of Technology for doctoral studies in Public Administration, and was granted provisional admission on January 13, 2023, under registration number EH502/5830/2022.
His lawyers detail an academic progression spanning roughly three and a half years, including a concept paper presented to the Postgraduate Presentation Board on November 24, 2023, a research proposal presentation scheduled for February 5, 2024, a data analysis and results presentation on August 1, 2025, a seminar paper presentation on October 28, 2025, and an invitation to his doctoral oral thesis defence on March 25, 2026, before the university's Directorate of Postgraduate Studies issued him a formal Letter of Completion of Studies dated June 16, 2026, confirming he had fulfilled the requirements for the award of a Doctorate in Public Administration.
His thesis is titled "Branding Strategies By County Governments On Service Delivery Among Small And Medium Enterprises In Bungoma County, Kenya." The lawyers argue that, given his bachelor's and master's degrees were both in Public Administration, there is no academic "mismatch" with his doctoral field as alleged, and that the suggestion he simply appeared at the final stage without undergoing ordinary academic scrutiny is contradicted by the university's own records.
Mutoro responded publicly and defiantly, refusing to comply with the ultimatum. In a post shared on X, he wrote that a law firm had given him two hours to delete his posts and pay Sh100 million or face "legal proceedings at my peril," calling the timeline unrealistic.
"I asked questions about a doctoral progression riddled with documented contradictions, dates, boards, supervisors, timelines that don't add up on the university's own paperwork. That is not defamation. That is public interest scrutiny of a public official's public claims, and it doesn't evaporate because a demand letter arrived stamped 'URGENT,'" he wrote.
He added that if the credentials were as clean as claimed, the proper venue to settle the matter was a court of law rather than a threat letter with a deadline attached, and said he would not be intimidated into retracting questions he maintains are backed by documentary record.
Mutoro also announced plans to file a cross-claim demanding Sh500 million in compensation, tagging the moment with the hashtag #KhupaKhuchee.
Mutoro's own lawyers, Tali Tali Advocates, formally responded to Barasa's legal team the same day, September 21, confirming instructions to act for Mutoro and noting that the matters raised in the demand letter remain subject to active court proceedings. The firm stated it had instructions to receive service of any applications Barasa's side might raise in those proceedings, or any new litigation threatened.
The demand letter arrives against the backdrop of a broader, already-existing legal fight. COFEK moved to the High Court in July 2026, naming the Commission for University Education (CUE) and Murang'a University of Technology as respondents and Barasa as an interested party, seeking investigation into his academic qualifications and the process through which his doctorate was obtained.
That petition has continued in parallel with the credentials controversy that flared up further after Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) wrote to COFEK on September 14, 2026, stating that Barasa was never enrolled at the institution and that a Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering certificate dated May 2008 attributed to him is not genuine.
JKUAT's Registrar of Academic Affairs, Dr Aggrey Wanyama, said Barasa's name does not appear in the university's alumni records and that JKUAT held no graduation ceremony on the date printed on the disputed certificate.
Barasa has denied ever claiming to be a JKUAT student, maintaining that his undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications came exclusively from Mount Kenya University.
Legal commentary circulating around the dispute has also pointed to a 2023 High Court directive requiring defamation cases to be transferred to the Chief Magistrate's Court, with commentators noting that Barasa's legal team, when pressed to cite precedent for an award exceeding Sh20 million in such a forum, did not provide one, a detail some have cited to question whether the Sh100 million figure is realistic within the applicable jurisdictional limits.