Fake Degrees: JKUAT Washes Its' Hands Off Kimilili MP Didmus Wekesa Barasa Engineering Degree Claim; Eyes on EBK

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUA) has, in writing, disowned the engineering degree Kimilili MP Didmus Wekesa Barasa has carried into public life for over a decade.

In a letter dated September 14, 2026, addressed to the Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK), JKUAT Registrar of Academic Affairs Dr Aggrey Wanyama said Barasa's name does not appear anywhere in the university's student or alumni records, that JKUAT held no graduation ceremony in May 2008 — the date on the MP's certificate — and that his Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering certificate is, in the university's own words, "NOT GENUINE."

The letter did not stop at a denial.

Dr Wanyama disclosed that the matter had "previously been investigated" by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and the Engineers Board of Kenya (EBK), and that JKUAT had already shared the same findings with both bodies.

Copies went to the Vice Chancellor and the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.

That single line is the story. Kenya's two institutions with a direct mandate to police fake academic and professional papers — one for graft, the other for engineering licensure — have known for some time that a sitting MP was carrying a certificate the issuing university says does not exist.

Neither has explained what, if anything, was done with that information. Barasa has continued to sit in the National Assembly, and nothing on record suggests EBK ever moved to strip or suspend whatever professional recognition the disputed degree afforded him. A pattern, not an isolated claim

This is not the first time Barasa's paper trail has been questioned. Earlier this year, COFEK filed a constitutional petition against the Commission for University Education and Murang'a University of Technology (HCCHRPET/E498/2026), challenging the academic credentials process around Barasa.

That case gained new relevance in July when the MP announced he had completed a PhD in Public Administration at Murang'a University, with a thesis on county government branding strategies in Bungoma. F

Former Bungoma Governor Wycliffe Wangamati publicly questioned the claim, and the university was dragged to court over it. Murang'a nonetheless conferred the doctorate at its August 2026 graduation.

A parallel defamation track has also opened. Earlier this month, a Bungoma court temporarily restrained former MCA Majimbo Okumu from repeating claims that Barasa forged his degree, after Barasa sued over remarks made during a church service in June.

The magistrate noted the interim order was not a finding on the truth of the allegations — that was left for trial.

JKUAT's letter, arriving weeks later, answers the factual question the Bungoma court declined to settle: whether the underlying 2008 JKUAT certificate is genuine. The university says it is not.

Institutional silence

COFEK Secretary-General Stephen Mutoro reacted publicly once the letter surfaced, pressing EACC and EBK to explain what action, if any, followed the university's earlier communication to them. It is a fair question.

Article 232 of the Constitution demands accountability and transparency in public service, and Chapter Six sets integrity thresholds for state officers.

A university's own registrar stating in writing that a lawmaker's degree is fake is about as unambiguous as documentary evidence gets.

If EACC and EBK sat on that information, the silence itself becomes the scandal — not just the original certificate.

For COFEK, this letter is also litigation ammunition. It sits alongside the Murang'a

petition as part of a broader push to force verification of public officers' academic claims through the courts rather than leave it to political mudslinging.

The Federation has signalled it intends to keep pressing both regulators publicly, rather than let the matter dissolve into another unresolved "fake degree" headline in a country that has produced many.

What next? Barasa has not, at time of writing, issued a substantive rebuttal to JKUAT's findings. He may argue the Bungoma suit bars discussion of the matter — but this letter did not come from a critic on a church pulpit; it came from the university's own registrar, on letterhead, copied to its Vice Chancellor.

That is harder to dismiss as political noise. The pressure now shifts to EACC and EBK to show their work, or explain why they haven't.