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Court extends order halting Safaricom share sale as Sonko seeks to join case
Lawyers Kalonzo and Suyianka Lempaa in court for the petitioners seeking to stop the government sale of shares in Safaricom on April 16, 2026. Inset is former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko.
The High Court has extended orders restraining the government from selling its 15 percent shares in Safaricom to Vodacom South Africa, pending determination of three petitions.
While ordering that the status quo be maintained, three judges appointed by Chief Justice Martha Koome to handle the case said serious fundamental and constitutional issues have been raised in the petitions filed by Tony Gachoka and Prof Fredrick Ogola.
Meanwhile, former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko applied to be enjoined in the public interest matter.
“We do not oppose Sonko joining this case which seeks to protect the interests of the public whose stakes in Safaricom is threatened,” Wiper leader and Senior Counsel Kalonzo Musyoka told the three-judge bench.
While applying to join the case, Sonko said Safaricom's dealings should be guarded jealously as it contributes heavily to the Kenyan economy.
Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko.
However the move by Sonko was opposed by the Attorney-General and the Central Bank of Kenya through its board chairman Andrew Musangi. He argued that the issues he intends to raise are already well addressed by petitioners representing the public.
However, SC Musyoka and other lawyers told the three judges that Sonko’s entry into the case will articulate the issues more deeply and enable the court come up with a well-reasoned decision.
In their case, the petitioners had urged the court to extend conservatory orders issued on March 26, 2026 which prohibit the government from offering for sale its 15 percent shareholding to Vodacom Kenya Limited, a South African wholly-owned company in Kenya.
“The government should not be allowed to sell the shares its holds on behalf of the public in Safaricom Plc, which is the goose that lays the golden eggs,” SC Musyoka stated, while alleging that the shares were under-valued.
He told the judges that profit arising from the telco's services should be ploughed back into the economy and that “profits should not be flown out of the country in a manner that is not well known.”
Said SC Musyoka: “Every minute Kenyans transact via M-Pesa, a Kenyan innovation that has earned this country international accolades. We should not lose this enterprise. We should protect it.”
The Wiper leader urged the court to allow the petitioners to amend their pleadings within 7 days.
The judges also heard that Parliament recently authorised the sale of the shares despite the court's order being in force.
The three-judge bench then directed that “all transactions in respect of the Safaricom share are hereby stopped until this matter is heard on April 27, 2026.”
The three judges were appointed by CJ Koome after the presiding judge stepped aside citing time constraints.
The court consolidated three petitions contesting the proposed divestiture and certified the matter as raising substantial constitutional questions requiring determination by an uneven expanded bench.
The decision came against the backdrop of parliamentary approval of the transaction, which is set to take effect from April 1, 2026, subject to regulatory clearances.
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