Tuju Drops Forgery, Fraud Bombshell, Calls SC Fred Ojiambo A ‘Bible-Carrying Fraud With a Fake British Accent’

Raphael Tuju has done what few men in this country dare to do. He has walked into the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, looked squarely into the face of Kenya’s legal establishment, and declared war.

The former Cabinet Secretary and Jubilee Party Secretary General strode out of DCI headquarters on Monday, February 16, having formally recorded a statement against one of the most decorated lawyers in the land.

Senior Counsel Fred Ojiambo of Kaplan and Stratton, a man who moves in the rarefied air of Kenya’s corporate elite, now finds himself the subject of a criminal complaint lodged by a man who is clearly not afraid of consequences.

And Tuju, never one to whisper when he can roar, did not mince his words.

“Fred Ojiambo is a Bible-carrying fraud with a fake British accent,” he thundered outside DCI headquarters, his lawyer Duncan Okach standing a measured step behind him.

Lawyer Fred Ojiambo.

THE MAN, THE PROPERTY AND THE 1.5 BILLION SHILLING QUESTION

At the centre of this seismic legal storm sits a prime property in Karen worth a staggering Ksh 1.5 billion. The Tuju family’s ownership of this piece of prime Nairobi real estate has been contested in a drawn-out war with the East African Development Bank (EADB), a regional lender that extended a loan to Tuju’s Dari Ltd and later moved to enforce securities against the property when repayment became contested.

What began as a commercial dispute over loan terms and enforcement proceedings has, in Tuju’s telling, long since crossed into something far darker. He is not talking about interest rates or missed instalments anymore. He is talking about forgery, fabricated evidence, manufactured affidavits, phantom diplomatic immunity, and a fake international arrest warrant that he says came all the way from a Ugandan magistrate’s court.

This is not a small claim.

THE CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AT THE DCI

Tuju told journalists that he had written to the DCI ten days before personally presenting himself to record his statement.

He arrived bearing what he described as documentary evidence of criminal conduct by Ojiambo, a senior partner at Kaplan and Stratton, one of the oldest and most prestigious law firms operating in Kenya.

At the core of his allegations is a claim that Ojiambo and other advocates at the firm “procured and manufactured many falsehoods” from a former Kenya Country Manager of the East African Development Bank and then deposited those fabricated falsehoods in sworn affidavits filed before both the High Court and the Supreme Court of Kenya.

Tuju says these affidavits were presented as having been properly commissioned before a Commissioner for Oaths when, in his view, they were no such thing.

If that allegation holds any water at all, it would mean that sworn documents presented to the highest court in the land were fraudulent. The implications for Kenya’s judiciary and legal profession would be catastrophic.

“With his left hand, he is filing documents filled with lies in court in support of a scheme to wrongfully deprive my family and me of properties acquired through decades of hard work,” Tuju declared, his voice carrying the particular fury of a man who believes he is fighting not just for land, but for his life’s work.

A THORN BY ANY OTHER NAME: THE KAPLAN AND STRATTON QUESTION

Tuju saved particular venom for the public image of Kaplan and Stratton as an institution. The firm, he pointed out with theatrical derision, carries an internationally polished, British-sounding name and projects itself as a global corporate firm of impeccable standing.

“It is wholly run by Kenyans,” he said, letting the observation land like a punch.

He then went further, raising the spectre of another senior partner at the same firm, Peter Gachuhi, who is already facing prosecution over the alleged forgery of the will of the late former Attorney General James Boro Karugu. Tuju stopped short of legally linking the two matters but the insinuation was clear: where there is smoke this thick, somebody has been playing with fire.

“If this can happen to persons like the late former AG James Boro Karugu and me, who have had the privilege of serving this country in high office, what is the situation for other Kenyans who cannot afford to engage teams of lawyers?” Tuju posed, framing his personal battle as something larger, a question of whether Kenya’s legal system belongs to the powerful or to everyone.

THE PHANTOM IMMUNITY AND THE UGANDAN GHOST WARRANT

Among the more extraordinary claims Tuju laid before investigators were two allegations that, if proved, would suggest a deliberate campaign to obstruct justice and intimidate a litigant into submission.

First, he alleged that a separate criminal matter pending before a Magistrates Court had been frozen in its tracks for over a year after Ojiambo allegedly persuaded the High Court to recognise a diplomatic immunity claim on behalf of the East African Development Bank, an immunity that Tuju flatly says does not exist in law.

Second, and more dramatically, he told investigators about what he described as a “fake international warrant of arrest” allegedly emanating from a Ugandan magistrate’s court, which he said was deployed against him to frighten him away from pursuing the matter.

“Nothing but an attempt to intimidate me,” Tuju said, his jaw set.

OJIAMBO FIRES BACK: ‘WE HAVE NEVER FALSIFIED ANY AFFIDAVIT’

Fred Ojiambo, reached by phone for comment, was having none of it.

The Senior Counsel, whose legal reputation spans decades of corporate and commercial practice in East Africa, dismissed Tuju’s claims with the quiet confidence of a man unconcerned by the storm gathering around him.

“We haven’t falsified any affidavit on any matter whatsoever,” Ojiambo said flatly. “I cannot deny something I have not heard.”

He added that he was unaware of the specifics of Tuju’s DCI complaint at the time of the call, but maintained that neither he nor his firm had engaged in any of the conduct alleged. His calm stood in sharp contrast to Tuju’s fire, and it will be for investigators and, ultimately, prosecutors or courts to determine which version of events bears scrutiny.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW

The DCI now sits with a complaint that directly implicates one of Kenya’s most prominent Senior Counsel in what would, if proved, amount to a serious subversion of justice at the highest levels of the country’s judicial hierarchy.

Investigators must wade through court filings, commissioning records, correspondence chains and sworn documents across multiple proceedings in the High Court and the Supreme Court to determine whether the evidence Tuju has presented constitutes prosecutable criminal offences or whether it amounts to the highly emotional, highly charged output of a man who has been fighting this battle for years and has run out of civil remedies.

The stakes could not be higher. The East African Development Bank is a regional institution backed by member states. Kaplan and Stratton is a cornerstone of Kenya’s corporate legal infrastructure. Fred Ojiambo is a Senior Counsel, a title conferred by the state on advocates of exceptional distinction.

And Raphael Tuju is a former minister, a former ruling party secretary general, a man who sat at the tables of power and now stands outside the DCI insisting that power has been turned against him.

“The fact that Ojiambo flashes the title of Senior Counsel must not be a license for him to lie with impunity, commit criminal offences, intimidate law enforcement and judiciary officers, and engage in the robbing of properties of Kenyans,” Tuju declared.

As investigators sift through the mountain of documents he has placed before them, one thing is already certain. This matter has graduated from a property dispute into something that will test the character of Kenya’s legal system in ways that no boardroom negotiation ever could.

The Karen property, the 1.5 billion shillings, the affidavits, the immunity, the warrant, the Bible. All of it now sits in the hands of the DCI.

And Raphael Tuju is daring them to act.