NAIROBI — The Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) views with the gravest alarm and unqualified condemnation reports — now confirmed by CNN and multiple international outlets — that the Government of Kenya is proceeding with the establishment of a US-backed Ebola quarantine, isolation and treatment facility at Laikipia Air Base, in open and deliberate defiance of a binding High Court order.
A Kenyan court on Friday suspended the Trump administration’s plan to establish a makeshift field hospital in Kenya to quarantine and treat Americans exposed to or infected with Ebola, citing a threat to life — issuing its ruling on the very day US officials had said the facility would begin operating. 
High Court Judge Patricia Nyaundi barred Kenya from establishing or operating any Ebola-related facility under agreements with the US or other foreign governments, and from admitting anyone exposed to or infected with the virus into the country, until the legal challenge is resolved. The case is set to return to court on 2 June 2026. 
Despite this unambiguous judicial order, Kenya’s government is pushing ahead with plans to establish the Ebola quarantine and treatment facility at the military installation.  This is a constitutional outrage.
KENYA IS NOT AMERICA’S EBOLA DUMPING GROUND
The proposed facility — comprising 50 isolation beds at Laikipia Air Base, approximately 200km from Nairobi — was to be managed entirely by US medical staff and intended solely to quarantine US nationals arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo. 
Local health groups have opposed the facility precisely because it would provide no care whatsoever to Kenyan citizens — focusing exclusively on American nationals. 
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), issued a 48-hour strike alert in response, accusing the authorities of putting public health at risk and warning that Kenya should not become a “dumping ground.” 
Elected leaders in Laikipia County had also opposed the facility, demanding to know: “Why Laikipia?” and “What does the US government know about this that they are not accepting their own affected citizens into their soil but are ready to have them elsewhere?” 
These are not rhetorical questions. They are constitutional ones. COFEK fully endorses them.
A GOVERNMENT THAT FLOUTS COURT ORDERS CANNOT CLAIM TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION
An Ebola outbreak centred on eastern DRC and crossing into Uganda has killed more than 200 people.  We do not minimise the gravity of this humanitarian crisis.
However, the solution cannot be to import that crisis into Kenya, in secret, under a bilateral arrangement that bypasses Parliament, ignores public health infrastructure, and now contemptuously disregards an order of the High Court.
The court prohibited the government from establishing or operating any Ebola exposure, quarantine, isolation or treatment facility in the country under any agreement with the United States or any other foreign government or agency. 
The order could not be clearer. The government’s decision to proceed regardless is not merely a legal violation — it is an act of executive lawlessness that strikes at the foundations of Kenya’s constitutional order.
COFEK reminds the government that no Executive authority — however pressured by foreign powers — supersedes an order of the High Court of Kenya.
Article 159(2)(a) of the Constitution vests judicial authority in the courts on behalf of the people. Defiance of that authority is an affront to every Kenyan citizen.
Accordingly, COFEK hereby calls upon:
1. The Government of Kenya to immediately and fully comply with the High Court order issued by Justice Patricia Nyaundi — ceasing all operations, construction and preparations at the Laikipia facility forthwith.
2. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to urgently consider contempt of court proceedings against any government official who has authorised, directed or facilitated non-compliance with the court order.
3. The National Assembly to summon the Cabinet Secretary for Health and relevant security officials to account for this secret bilateral arrangement and its implications for Kenya’s public health sovereignty.
4. The High Court to take judicial notice of the government’s defiance when the matter returns on 2 June 2026 and to issue further and stronger enforcement orders, including personal service on the relevant Cabinet Secretaries.
5. Civil society and the public to remain vigilant. COFEK will, if necessary, file its own intervention or contempt application before the High Court.
COFEK stands firmly with the Kenyan people, the Kenyan medical community, and the Kenyan judiciary in rejecting the proposition that this Republic can be turned into a biological containment zone for foreign nationals while Kenyan patients are left to fend for themselves in a collapsing public health system.
A government that ignores its own courts today will ignore its own citizens tomorrow.
