Senator Linturi, UoN degree battle moves to court

Meru Senator Mithika Linturi has moved to court to challenge the University of Nairobi’s decision to deregister him as a law student for allegedly presenting fake papers to get admission.

Linturi says his tribulations started way back during the campaign period when his political opponents, Milton Mugambi Imanyara and then Meru Governor Peter Munya, swore that they would do anything to ensure that his name was not on the ballot for the August 8th elections.

He claims that the political war was taken over by Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC). Through lawyer Tom Ojienda, Linturi argues that through a letter, he was summoned by EACC to appear before it for investigations on May 30, 2017.

“EACC had conclusively investigated the allegations that Linturi self-declaration forms for 2013 elections filed with IEBC were falsified,” reads court papers.

According to the papers filed in court, Linturi says that he was admitted at the University of Nairobi on 3rd January 2014 and was positioned to graduate on 22nd of December, 2017 with a Bachelors of Laws degree. However, he says on 30th of November just 21 days to his confirmed graduation, while watching news, he learnt with shock that the University had deregistered him for allegedly having fake degree from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University.

He now wants the court to quash the decision by the University of Nairobi to deregister and discontinue him as its student.

He further wants the university compelled to restore his name in the graduation list for December 22, 2017. The Senator says that if the orders are not granted, then he will not be able to graduate.

Linturi says that UoN failed to inform him in writing that it was investigating his degree from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University with the aim of deregistering him as student in violation of Article 47 of the constitution.

He says that it was “illegal, unreasonable and an utter show of bad faith” for UON to deregister him without conducting its own independent investigations.

He claims that the actions of UoN “tell of nothing but a public body that has allowed itself to be used illegally by the EACC in an utter unapologetic show of abuse of power to harass, intimidate and violate his rights to education.”

According to the university’s senate, it sat and resolved to deregister him following investigations that revealed that the degree from a university in India that he used to secure admission at University of Nairobi in 2014 was forged.