CORD leader Raila Odinga has sued the National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale for defamation over allegations that he was behind the downfall of Mumias Sugar Company.
Duale is accused of linking Odinga to the financial woes at the sugar company by stating that his family-owned company had not yet paid their Ksh 40 million debt to the sugar miller.

In the suit, Duale is quoted as saying: “The collapse of Mumias did not start during Uhuru’s tenure. It began during that of former President Mwai Kibaki and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Raila’s family owes Mumias Sugar Company Ksh 40 million and we call on Western legislators to go to the former PM’s office and pick the cheque.”Odinga also accused Duale of labeling him as the “Lord of Poverty” and inciting people of Western Kenya to demand payment from him over the purported sugar debt.
Through his lawyer Paul Mwangi, the ODM leader said that Duale’s statement were televised and published locally and internationally claiming that the words were calculated to injure the Plaintiff’s reputation.
The suits stated that the utterances were aimed to mean that Odinga unlawfully refused to settle Mumias debt, conspired with his family members to pay the debt and showed that sugar farmers were unable to take their children to school due to is failure to pay the said debt.
Seek damages for defamation
“The Plaintiff avers that the defamatory and malicious words uttered have grievously injured his character both personally and as a very prominent politician and leader in Kenya and in the world and as such he had been exposed to public scandal, odium and ridicule and embarrassment.”
“He has been lowered in the estimation of right thinking persons and continues to be injured in the course of his private and public life.”
Odinga claimed that Duale’s words meant that he is a debt defaulter who refuses to settle commercial debts, has unlawfully withheld from the people of Western Kenya and from sugarcane farmers’ money which is rightfully due and owing from him to them and bears the responsibility of the collapse of Mumias Sugar.
It further states that the utterances mean that Duale’s remarks pursue a deliberate political strategy to impoverish the people of Kenya and lacks the integrity as a politician and is undeserving of his role as a leader in Kenya.
In addition to filing for general and aggravated damages for defamation of character, Odinga also wants an injunction restraining Duale from repeating the defamatory words to cover the cost of the suit and interest on all awards from the date of judgment to full payment thereof.
Duale has previously stated that he has evidence showing that Odinga owes the sugar company Ksh 40 million and the suit may open a tough legal battle between the two.