Know David Oginde? He is former presiding bishop of Christ Is The Answer Ministries and a columnist for The Sunday Standard. The prominent man of God made an eyebrow-raising observation that is impossible to sweep under the rug.
His column on April 3 was titled, “Why journalists and prophets must not be compromised”. The bishop wrote, no preached, that, like prophets, journalists in particular and the media in general are supposed to provide objective news and analyses to help society make informed choices.
“Unfortunately, there is a growing trend in our society in which prominent journalists and leading opinion writers are enlisted by politicians to sell a partisan agenda. In some cases, whole media houses have been entrapped into becoming mouthpieces of a political party or a particular candidate. They thus tilt the news and commentaries, ever so subtly, in favour of their masters – thus giving us distorted truth or outright lies”.
A smashing indictment of The Fourth Estate, this. The good bishop did not give examples. He has his reasons for not naming names. So, the Media Observer tried looking for evidence of what Oginde was talking about. We picked up the Daily Nation of April 5. A headline across pages 4 and 5 said, “UDA primaries pose a logistical, political nightmare for Ruto”.
The Deputy President’s party will hold nominations on April 14. Why will they be a logistical and political nightmare for him? The Nation reported that UDA planned to hire 100,000 clerks for the job. Quoted Ruto as saying they procured 30 million ballot papers.
The party had already recruited 47 returning officers. It was hiring presiding officers that week. Elections board chairman Anthony Mwaura said they had invited 17 ambassadors to monitor the nominations and were accrediting media houses to cover the event.
Party would use its own transparent ballot boxes and not borrow from IEBC. And so on. Looks like meticulous preparation, isn’t it? So, why would the nominations pose a logistical and political nightmare for Ruto? What had Kimathi Street discovered? Well, this:
“Holding nominations in a single day harks back to the botched Jubilee Party primaries in 2017. The exercise had to be cancelled following a logistical failure as the party failed to deliver enough ballot papers”. That was the rest of the story.
So, if Jubilee nominations flopped, no one else in this world can successfully hold party primaries in a single day? All those preparations the Nation detailed count for nothing? Why?
The next page carried two stories about ODM nominations at the Coast. “ODM meets Mombasa aspirants to stem fallout over direct tickets”, the first headline said. The story reported “uproar” over issuance of direct tickets. But the report was positive: the party would sort out the issue.
Next story: “Orange party successfully conducts nominations in Kwale, Taita Taveta”. The report said “most polling stations in the two counties had no queues, which the party attributed to the efficiency of technology”. Several other media reports showed low turnout of members.
Eight parties within Azimio led by Maendeleo Chap Chap boss and Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua called a press conference to protest they were not happy with how the coalition was run.
But there were no screaming headlines about a split in Azimio. The Standard headline instead applauded the appointment of Raphael Tuju as Azimio executive director in splash titled, “Raila’s new Mr Fix It”. Tuju’s new job “reflects the former Jubilee secretary general’s political ascendancy and adds to his growing reputation as President Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga’s ‘Mr Fix It’”, the paper said.
Yet Tuju’s appointment was, in fact, one of the issues Mutua’s Mwanzo Mpya caucus was complaining about. “This appointment of a Tuju-led secretariat, we also saw it in the news. Unajua hata information, hata kama hatukubali, even information. We saw it in the news,” a pained Mutua said on Citizen TV’s Day Break show.
The Standard reported the Azimio split under the headline, “All is not well in Azimio coalition as Mutua, Kibwana make new demands”. Did they make “new demands”? No.
The Nation reported the dispute as follows: “The new outfit, whose registration documents are still under review by the Registrar of Political Parties, is already facing internal rebellion from fringe parties over zoning” (April 7, p.10).
If some parties within a political coalition raise questions, does that amount to “internal rebellion”? Is everyone supposed to agree with everything? Isn’t the Nation here trying to manufacture consent? For whose benefit?
Bishop David Oginde, you have a point, sir.
