A screenshot of a K24 TV news broadcast circulating on social media last week showed the station apparently explaining the political dynamics of the by-election in Kibra, Nairobi, slated for November 7.
The mini-election following the death of MP Ken Okoth has attracted intense national attention because it is seen as a contest among the country’s political bigwigs and the parties they own – that word is used deliberately. Despite the pretense, parties in Kenya are nothing more than the personal property of the kingpins purporting to lead them. But that’s a debate for another day.
The K24 TV newscast in Kiswahili listed the numbers of voters in Kibra as follows: Luhya (36,000), Luo (28,000), Kikuyu (25,000), Kamba (21,000), Nubi (13,000) and kabila nyinginezo (22,000).
The Star on August 31 had a different set of ethnic figures, “with the Luhya tribe being the single largest vote bloc with 43,000 voters.”
The Luos are about 30,000 registered voters, the Kikuyus 22,000, the Kamba 13,000 while the Nubians are about 10,000 voters, the paper reported.
Kibra’s demographics are nothing but ethnic identities.
What is the point of these ethnic figures? What message is being relayed by media houses that tell their audiences there are so many Luo or Ogiek voters in a certain constituency? What is the news value of those numbers?
This kind of reporting makes the tribe (a dirty colonial word) the basis of interest aggregation and articulation. It promotes the we-versus-them narrative.
The ethnic profiling distracts from a more progressive discussion of Kibra politics by presenting nativism as an ideology. It is not important what qualification candidates in a political contest might have or lack. What is important is that the community they come from has the dominant numbers.
Our journalism must outgrow such primitive analysis. Everyone knows the roles of an MP: representation, legislation and oversight. A mature debate about the politics of an area should tell audiences how each candidate is suited (or not) to play these roles.
Being Luhyia or Nubian is not a qualification for holding public office in Kenya. It is a shame that certain media houses tell their audiences that it is.
Journalists are aware that politicians use ethnic identity to divide voters. Yet they play into the hands of such ethnic demagogues through the profiling provided by K24 TV and the Star newspaper.
Kenya has failed to be a nation but remains a collection of sometimes murderous tribes because of playing up ethnicity over national cohesion.
It would not surprise keen observers, for instance, to notice that something like the March 9, 2018 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is perceived in certain quarters as a pact between Kikuyus and Luos.
The Code of Conduct for the Practice of Journalism in Kenya contemplates a journalist as an informed and engaged citizen committed to the promotion of national harmony, amity and peace.
Obsession with ethnic arithmetic in the name of political analysis demeans journalism.