{"id":16803,"date":"2026-01-11T09:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/16803\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T09:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:32:10","slug":"nakuru-governor-kihika-demands-apology-from-senator-karanja-over-multi-billion-hotel-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/16803\/","title":{"rendered":"Nakuru Governor Kihika demands apology from Senator Karanja over multi-billion hotel remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fridah<\/a> By
\n
\n Fridah Naliaka
\n <\/a>
\n Published on: January 11, 2026 10:47 (EAT)
\n \"Nakuru <\/p>\n

Nakuru Senator Tabitha Karanja (left) with governor Susan Kihika (right). Photo: FILE<\/p>\n

\"Vocalize <\/p>\n

Audio By Vocalize<\/p>\n

Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika has demanded an apology from Senator Tabitha Karanja, following what the complainant terms as defamatory remarks made at a church service on December 21, 2025. <\/p>\n

In a letter by lawyer Ahmednassir Abdullahi, Kihika accuses Karanja of making \u201cfalse, malicious and gravely disparaging\u201d remarks against her.<\/p>\n

She cited claims made by Karanja, who alleged that the governor misappropriated public funds to construct a family-owned hotel, allegedly valued at billions of shillings.<\/p>\n

Kihika argues that the false and malicious statement made inference to her business intentionally endangered national security by reason of its proximity to the State House.<\/p>\n

Karanja had alleged that the governor was building a hotel on Kenya Railway land neighbouring the Nakuru Memorial Hospital and State House.<\/p>\n

She further threatened to table a motion against the governor when the Senate resumes its sittings in February 2026.<\/p>\n

Now, Kihika has argued that Karanja\u2019s statements were solely calculated to injure her good name and reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour utterances were deliberately calculated to injure the reputation and standing of Her Excellency with her constituents and was solely conceived, designed and executed to expose her to hatred, contempt, ridicule and odium in order to lower our Client in the estimation of the right-thinking members of Nakuru County in particular and Kenya at large,\u201d reads the demand letter.<\/p>\n

Kihika, through Senior Counsel Abdullahi, said the remarks by Karanja were \u201ca gross distortion of the truth, wild fantasy and fertile imagination on your part, grotesque to the extreme, malicious beyond comprehension, false beyond honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor now wants Nakuru Senator to \u201cimmediately and unconditionally\u201d retract her statement and \u201cimmediately admit liability and confess publicly to all Kenyans at large that malice was the motive of [her] remarks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Fridah Naliaka Published on: January 11, 2026 10:47 (EAT) Nakuru Senator Tabitha Karanja (left) with governor Susan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[10767,80,10765,10768,10766,10769],"class_list":{"0":"post-16803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kenya","8":"tag-governor","9":"tag-kenya","10":"tag-nakuru","11":"tag-senator","12":"tag-susan-kihika","13":"tag-tabitha-karanja"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}