Kenya: Facebook, data mining firm could face lawsuit

By Andrew Wasike

NAIROBI, Kenya

Breaking his silence on the role Facebook and Cambridge Analytica played in last year’s Kenyan elections, a Kenyan opposition leader said Tuesday he is considering suing both firms.

Speaking to Britain’s Channel 4 News, Raila Odinga said he is “disappointed that Facebook agreed to cooperate with this clandestine enterprise, I have been very disappointed and we are actually contemplating legal action against Facebook.”

Any legal action will be “outside Kenya, we have lawyers from Kenya and also outside Kenya,” he added.

Odinga said he would also sue data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica for interference in the Kenyan elections, blasting their methods as “devilish”.

Already under scrutiny in Britain and America, Cambridge Analytica is facing fire in Kenya over the role it played in last year’s hotly contested Kenyan polls.

Last year President Uhuru Kenyatta clinched a second term in office, but only after the August election was annulled, leading to a second poll in October that was boycotted by the opposition.

The ruling Jubilee Party has admitted that it hired Cambridge Analytica but downplayed the firm’s role, saying it was "basically branding and all that but not directly."