Blow to Sakaja as Court Blocks Bid to Gag NMG Over Reports Linking Him to City Goons During Gen Z Protests

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has been dealt a heavy blow after the High Court threw out his bid to muzzle the Nation Media Group (NMG) over reporting that linked him to violent city goons accused of unleashing chaos during the June 2025 Gen Z protests.

In a strongly worded ruling, Justice Nixon Sifuna said Sakaja had failed to show any credible threat that NMG was about to publish defamatory material against him.

Instead, the judge ruled, the governor was seeking a sweeping, “rolling gag order” that would shield him from future scrutiny and silence the press in advance.

“The Plaintiff is seeking a rolling or free-flowing injunction as a precaution to the general likelihood of the media house in future publishing such a story. For an injunction of that manner to be issued, there must be evidence of an imminent or immediate future threat,” Justice Sifuna said, dismissing the motion.

Sakaja sued in June after NMG published its explosive exposé “How chaos was planned”, which detailed how hired goons attacked peaceful demonstrators in Nairobi during the anti-Finance Bill protests. The report suggested senior political figures, including Sakaja, may have had a hand in the violence. The governor denied the allegations and sought to block the media from ever linking him to the gangs again. His lawyers claimed that with future commemorations of the Gen Z movement, there was a real risk NMG would “repeat the same narrative.”

But the judge was categorical that such fears could not be the basis for gagging the press. He reminded the court that Article 34 of the Constitution protects media freedom as a cornerstone of democracy, adding that public figures like Sakaja are not entitled to hide from scrutiny. “The higher the privilege, the higher the responsibility and scrutiny,” Justice Sifuna declared, stressing that courts must not dish out pre-trial injunctions “in a wanton, reckless and cavalier fashion.”

The decision echoes earlier rulings where courts protected journalists exposing corruption and abuse of power, underscoring a growing judicial resistance to attempts by political elites to muzzle the press.

For Sakaja, the judgment is not just a legal loss but also a reputational setback: the governor remains locked in a bruising defamation battle with NMG, while the media is now free to continue probing his alleged role in the chaos that rocked Nairobi during the Gen Z protests.