Ambassador Kiema demands apology from MP Mbai or face defamation suit 

Kiema, who served for two terms as MP for the constituency from the year  2002 to the year 2012 before Mbai succeeded him, accuses the incumbent of  alleged felonious public utterances portraying him as corrupt, a thief, fraudulent, of questionable integrity, unfit to hold public office and that he has committed a criminal offence.

In a letter dated January 19, 2026, the former ambassador’s lawyers, Tom O. K’opere and company Advocates, told the the UDA MP unless he complies with the demands within the stipulated time, suitable defamatory proceedings will be instituted against him without any further reference to him and at his own risk to the attendant costs.

 The MP did not respond to our inquiry on the allegations. 

The demand letter said on about January 5, 2026 while addressing a public gathering and or political rally at Nzombe Market, Kitui East Constituency Mbai falsely and maliciously spoke, published and or broadcast of the defamatory utterances.

The advocates letter in our possession read in part “ take notice that unless you comply with our demand within the next Fourteen (14) days from the date hereof, we have instructions to institute defamatory proceedings as suitable against you without any further reference to you and at your risk to the attendant costs.”

“On or about 5th January 2026 while addressing a public gathering and or political rally at Nzombe Market, Kitui East Constituency you falsely and maliciously spoke, published and or broadcast of and concerning our client the words following (English translation), that is to say:  Kiema Kilonzo and……travelled to China, and were ………to sell coal that was discovered in Block A and B, that is in Nzombe and Mutito.”

The lawyers told the MP he should pay an appropriate sum in damages, the quantum of which shall be agreed, to compensate their client for the serious injury to his reputation, associated distress and embarrassment.

“You publish a suitable withdrawal and apology in terms to be approved by the client to be published in a daily newspaper of national circulation and in social platforms especially within Kitui County, give a written undertaking that you will not repeat the said or similar words and allegations concerning our client,” the latter continued.

Kiema lately served as Ambassador to Uganda. Before then he served as Kenyan ambassador to Turkey.

A Kenya delegation that visited China in 2012 returned findings that Fenxi Mining Company that won the contract for extraction at Mui Coal Basin in Kitui East has the capacity and ability to mine.

In 2011, Kenya picked China’s Fenxi Mining Industry Company to develop coal mining in Mui.

According to documents, the Chinese company, which won the controversial Mui coal concession, was introduced to Kenya by Dr George Kariithi, a Kenyan businessman with international business and links in Africa and Asia through his company Great Lakes Corporations which he co-owns with a New Zealand national, Mr Ian See Won.

Other documents show that Fenxi has 66,000 employees, and is incorporated in Shanxi Province, China where it excavates more than 30 million metric tonnes of coal per year in a coalfield with estimated 5.8 billion metric tonnes of the mineral.

It has also been established that the firm had a solid mining history spanning 50 years and has a registered capital of 31.6 billion Yuan (Sh379 billion). The company was founded in 1956.

However, Kiema teamed with other leaders to object to these findings challenging the Fenxi’s capacity to mine coal in Mui.

Kiema and the leaders had earlier in the same year travelled to China to disapprove that Fenxi lacked mines in China, leading to court challenges and questions about the vetting process, all part of broader scrutiny on China-Kenya ties.

The political bickering and protracted lawsuits smelt a rat in the extraction of estimated 400-million tonnes of commercially viable coal reserves in Block C in Mui coal basin, Kitui County.

The discovery of the Sh3.4 trillion ($40 billion) viable coal reserves at the basin was seen as a major breakthrough towards realisation of the dream of making Kenya an industrial hub.