Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has spent years saying the men he trusted most with his political survival sold him out at the precise moment it mattered. In fresh court testimony and a bombshell video circulating this week, the claim has returned with sharper edges: that retired President Uhuru Kenyatta paid his own lawyers, Cecil Miller and George Kithi, to withdraw from the fight against his impeachment.
The allegation is not new. It sits on a paper trail Sonko himself laid out in November 2021, on the failed privacy suit Miller brought against him, on the Judicial Service Commission tribunal that later removed Justice Said Chitembwe, and now on video and audio Sonko has played in his ongoing Sh20 million corruption case before Justice Charles Ondieki.
Miller and Kithi were the visible faces of Sonko’s legal team when the Nairobi County Assembly voted to impeach him in December 2020.
They were assembling evidence on quorum, virtual voting irregularities, and the legality of the process. Public reports at the time described them compiling material to challenge the vote and preparing court applications for conservatory orders.
Within weeks the relationship collapsed.
By early 2021 the pair had exited the matter. Sonko later hired others, including Senior Counsel John Khaminwa, who himself withdrew in March 2021 citing lack of instructions and evidence.
What Sonko says happened in between is the core of the betrayal claim. In recent testimony he has told court that his lawyers attended meetings at State House, including discussions involving Uhuru Kenyatta, where the possibility of withdrawing representation was raised.
He has alleged that funds were transferred into an advocate’s bank account, that separate meetings took place between the lawyer and a judge handling related proceedings, and that the conservatory application was then abandoned.
He has named former State House Comptroller George Kariuki as the person tasked with ensuring the lawyers stepped away.
In one recording played in court, phrases such as “Number One” and “Nyumba Kubwa” appear; Sonko has identified them as references to Uhuru and State House.
Shock as Mike Sonko Plays Secret Recording of his Former Lawyer Cecil Miller in Court exposing how Uhuru Kenyatta had Pocketed Everybody in his Impeachment case! pic.twitter.com/6GJmn5MFo9
— Mutembei TV (@MutembeiTV) October 14, 2026
The 2021 numbers Sonko posted publicly remain the most concrete figures attached to the story.
He listed a series of transfers he said went to Cecil Miller during the impeachment period: Sh30 million on 23 February 2021, Sh34 million the next day, Sh27.98 million and Sh31.9 million on 25 February, followed by larger sums in June and August that he tallied at roughly Sh315.5 million.
He captioned the thread “PRICE OF BACKSTABBING AND OILING OF CORRUPTION NETWORKS IN THE JUDICIARY” and noted that Miller “abandoned me midstream of my proceedings in a certain court.”
Sonko has long maintained he records calls.
The “Sonko Leaks” series that followed in late 2021 included material he said showed Miller conversing with associates linked to Justice Chitembwe.
The broader leaks also captured discussions around payments in a Kwale land deal and alleged influence over the impeachment case itself.
Chitembwe was later investigated by a tribunal; the report detailed meetings, alleged cash movements, and the judge’s private engagements with Sonko’s side while sitting on the bench.
The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the recommendation that Chitembwe leave the bench. Miller, for his part, went to court in November 2021 seeking to stop further publication of the recordings.
Justice Hedwig Ongudi dismissed the case in 2022 after Miller failed to produce the actual CDs or flash disks of the material he claimed violated his privacy. Sonko did not even enter appearance. The judge’s ruling was blunt: he who alleges must prove.
The pattern Sonko describes is consistent across his accounts.
He says he took cash he claimed was county loot to State House to expose what was happening at City Hall.
He says he refused certain instructions on demolitions and budget matters.
He says the response was coordinated pressure on the impeachment process, including on the lawyers and on the judge. In the current Sh20 million case he has repeated that State House agents interfered with his defence so that lawyers would abandon him, and that the same network ensured the impeachment stuck.
He has played the recordings and asked to be acquitted on the basis that the entire prosecution is political retaliation.
Miller has previously denied other large-sum allegations, including a 2020 claim that he irregularly received Sh252 million from the National Land Commission for Kajiado land acquired for the SGR. His firm issued a strong denial and threatened suit against the Daily Nation.
More recently he has faced and pushed back against claims of unpaid fees or incomplete work involving an ambassador, and the Law Society of Kenya has declined to pursue certain complaints because related civil proceedings are already in court.
Kithi has remained a public figure, contesting political seats at the Coast and appearing in other litigation. Neither has issued a detailed public rebuttal to the specific 2026 court claims about State House meetings and withdrawal payments that this week’s Mutembei TV video has amplified.
The professional duty of an advocate is to act in the client’s interest, not the interest of the opposing political machine.
Sonko’s version is that the men who took his instructions and fees did the opposite when the price was right, leaving him exposed as the Senate confirmed his removal and the courts later upheld the process.
Whether the bank records, the recordings, and the court testimony ultimately prove that version is a matter for the ongoing proceedings and any future disciplinary or criminal inquiry.
What is already on the public record is a client who says his own lawyers were paid to walk away, a failed attempt by one of those lawyers to silence the recordings, and a former president named in open court as the source of the pressure.
For a man who once recorded everything, that is the story he keeps trying to force into the open.
There's no story that cannot be told. We cover the stories that others don't want to be told, we bring you all the news you need. If you have tips, exposes or any story you need to be told bluntly and all queries write to us [email protected] also find us on Telegram
