It is a known fact by now that there’s a war against bloggers in Kenya.
The regime of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto has had a few attempts to lawfully gag social and mainstream media freedom over the course of the last 5 years or so.
Many attempts at enacting laws to gag social media and bloggers have failed flat because in the court of law; where were judges such as Mumbi Ngugi who saw into the gagging machinery the government was intent in creating.
The government succeeded in gagging the mainstream media by denying them advertisements in case they ‘misbehaved’. It failed so much with bloggers and social media.
Now that the government has failed to gag bloggers, they have resorted to extra-judicial tactics.
In the age of information, integrity is a good tool.
The plundering Jubilee regime has opened war with bloggers and that is seen in the way they desperately used one of the finest and most influential bloggers Cyprian Nyakundi as an example, perhaps a start, by setting him up using an Akasha, a family known to be engaged in illegal businesses.
Nyakundi and his counterpart according to the blogger’s statement were fixed by the police who were being commandeered by a Nurdin Tinta Akasha. The raid shows how desperate the government can be in its war on free speech.
Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi’s arrest emboldened the rogue state and cartels mentioned in various criminal cases by bloggers.
In the same day Cyprian Nyakundi was arrested, another blogger whom I know sent me screenshots showing threatening messages from some very highly placed sources whom I cannot name. They had threatened him with death. Nyakundi arrest news was at around 3:41 p.m. on Monday 20th January 2020 by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) social media pages. The other blogger received an email threatening him at 3:55 p.m., the same day.
It was not a coincidence.
The government has emboldened the cartels while at the same time saying that they are fighting corruption.
Justice Wilfrida Okwany in July 31st 2019 while dismissing a case against Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi ‘publishing obscene information’ against Interior CS Fred Matiang’ i, Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru and Nairobi governor Mike Sonko, stated that the section 84D of the Kenya Information and Communications Act is unconstitutional.
The judge further stated that as public officials, they must be ready for criticism.
Seems like the other arm of government doesn’t want the freedom of speech to thrive.
In April 2016, Justice Mumbi Ngugi gave the government a kick in the balls by declaring section 29B of the Kenya Information and Communications Act is unconstitutional.
The Kenya Information and Communications Act was the gagging gunship that was prepared by Jubilee against the users of social media power.
For a government that came into power through the power and influence of social media in 2013 and then hacked Kenyan minds to steal elections in 2017 through the same social media, it should be shameful that it was intent on closing the same thing that helped them. How did they think it would end up? huh?
In politically and economically inclusive societies, such nonsense is not done so openly. Jubilee has become so brazen in its gagging of bloggers.
Just recently, another influential Facebook user by the name Mildred Atieno aka Atty was arrested like an armed robber after refusing to part with a bribe. The police invaded her house, fired teargas, shot dead a dog and marched her to the police station.
In the ensuing battle of information and disinformation, there is video documentary, pictures, posts and screenshots currently circulating against Atty in the Kenyan blogosphere. Few have stood with her. Fewer more have stood by Nyakundi, whose online expose’s often turn out to be true and the mainstream media treats it as exclusive when it comes to that.
My take is that the police, in both Cyprian Nyakundi’s and Mildred Atty Atieno’s case acted with some form of impunity, because the state wants so badly to muzzle influential bloggers that do not tow its line.
In Nyakundi’s case, they used a drug dealer to command the detectives at DCI. The DPP is also having him as a witness.
In Mildred Atty’s case, the police became the judge, jury and executioners.
It is no wonder that a couple of bloggers are now in hiding fearing the rise of the cartels, embolden by the arrest and intended prosecution of one of Kenya’s best sons, Cyprian Andama Nyakundi.
What happened to the celebrity DPP Noordin Haji and DCI boss George Kinoti?
I now declare, even though it was obvious, that the war on corruption is officially dead.
