Safaricom sues blogger over posts

Corporate News An Airtel Money shop in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE

By OKUTTAH MARK

In Summary

• Safaricom says Cyprian Nyakundi has defamed it in three articles that are part of a 15-part series that he has written.

Safaricom has sued a local blogger claiming that he has defamed the company by authoring and posting a number of unsubstantiated and unsupported claims on his blog about the telco.

Through its lawyer Ogetto, Otachi and Company Advocates, Safaricom says Cyprian Nyakundi has defamed it in three articles that are part of a 15-part series that he has written.

Part 1 of the series ‘How Safaricom steals from Kenyans with third parties’, portrays the telco as a “thief and a fraud, obtaining money and profits in form of airtime from its subscribers through non-existent subscriptions,” read part of  a suit notice.

In the second part, Mr Nyakundi is alleged to have written and posted an article, ‘Your privacy and Safaricom are two different things’, where he claimed that the company is infringing on its customers’ privacy and getting away with it.

In the third part, the telco says the blogger wrote an article dubbed ‘Time to put Safaricom back in its box before it seriously hurts Kenyans,’ where he discusses the plight of Kenyans who he claims were laid off after falling ill.

The hearing of the case is set for the July 14.

Safaricom argues that the allegations are unsubstantiated and baseless. It further argued that the defendant has failed to apologize and withdraw the defamatory statements from his blog.

Safaricom states that he can continue to do it in future, which will negatively impact Safaricom’ s popularity and customer base.

The mobile communications firm says the matter Mr Nyakundi was referring to with regard to treatment of some of it former employees is before the courts.

Justice Mabeya has ordered Mr Nyakundi to pull down all posts in his blog that are defamatory to Safaricom.

A permanent injunction has been issued against him, his blog, agents or any other blog, publish any posts on his blog on Safaricom that border on the litigation matters.

The injunction also applied to future publications on his blog that would be deemed defamatory to Safaricom