Fifth Estate watch

It’s at that time again of the blog calendar that we turn to politics.


I sympathize and still do when the Standard Group (SG) was invaded early this year by the hooded mercenaries for I ABHOR violence and the acts can only be termed as pure barbarism and as archaic.

However recent readings of the same newspaper and its sidekicks could send my sympathies out of the window as we settle down to an ODM-sympathetic newspaper.

Unfortunately the media cannot criticize itself so we have to create a “FIFTH ESTATE” called Blogland.

Its kinda the NARC splinter group is being fed to us by force. It doesn’t matter who is in it. It doesn’t matter their ideologies or where they are coming from or where they are going if anywhere.

In the KTN news, we have 2 news items about ODM and then another one on Raila and ODM on a day when there is a graduation at the University of Nairobi. I remember a while ago when there was a graduation; about 3-4 news item was allocated to the graduands and the ceremony. Or is it that the station is experiencing shortage of reporters to go to other events and that’s how they end up with one news item split into 3. I pity the news anchors who have to read the news for they have no say. I mean it’s disturbing.

In the Standard the following day, we have 3 pages of coverage of the ODM and the so called de facto leader and you pause and think. Someone is being paid here. Not that I am saying there is anything wrong to cover any political party as you may wish but that only doing so compromises the said paper’s objectiveness. In any case the election is a year and some months away.

Their ability to bring news is highly suspect now. I mean long time ago KTN used to have very interesting features but now?! ODM-ritocracy has caught up with them and they are so for vendetta until they won’t realize we have all switched to Channel 5 East Africa TV or better still for those who can afford DSTV is selling like hot cake. I mean you would rather watch National Geographic than listen to some of that.

But one thing I know for sure, ODM is not Moses or whoever it is that led the poor Israelites to Canaan from Misri (Misery).

We have a party with same script, different casts. Only this time they even carried William Ruto to the casting site. How obnoxious!!!!!

The only man I kinda got respect for there is Kalonzo and even after the Kalembe Ndile incident I lost quite some amount of respect. Did I say I abhor violence? For those who may not know Kalembe was almost caused to grievous bodily harm on the former foreign minister’s ground for being a government sympathizer in an opposition zone. WTF???

I am even getting sick of writing this. The dirty work has to be done anyway.

The idea behind a newspaper is to report news as and when they happen. And a free and fair media is one that is without interference from either political party, individuals or group of persons or even tribal affiliations.

I recently read in the Drum Issue of September that a Liberian Minister lives well below 2 dollars per day and his salary is Ksh. 4,000 as they try to rebuild the country. That is when for the first time in many years I appreciated the Former President Moi. I mean Charles Taylor could as well have been running a country full of minerals and without the scars of colonialization but still he didn’t spare the damn country.

So it’s at that point I stood to wonder, for what reason did we hate Moi so much? Then I looked down to see though Moi had run down the country for many years (that’s a point we can’t argue on), he had not behaved like Charles Taylor or Mobutu Sese Seko. Those are men who deserved death by the electric chair.

Yet for all fair purposes we are ahead; we don’t need to import people to come and be minister or key educational chiefs. Moi did actually do something only he didn’t do it too well. And some of the evils we have to deal with were started by Kenyatta and entrenched by the man. But still there are some good things about him which were down played. I mean the Nation Media Group(NMG) who at that time its Editorial Policy (whatever that is) faulted all the things Moi did. I couldn’t even remember a good thing about him. Because the newspapers didn’t find anything good in the man and so didn’t I.

I wonder what will happen when come 2008, we have the ODM ruling and they continue to practice the same corruption and tribalism. Will they now keep quiet? Will their editorial policy change? Will they become the now Voice of Government (VOG) by name Citizen TV and Radio?

For heavenly sake, I would challenge the newspaper to take a hard look at the leaders they are fronting. Give us their credentials or Lack thereof. Show us why they think they should occupy Bunge and State House. List their achievements at constituency and national level. Why what? That’s what the average educated and not so educated Kenyan is looking for. Put them on the spot for their deeds and misdeeds. Why the fox will have turned the cat? Why they have to change goal posts and political parties at the same rate I change my underwear.

Do they even know why they are the leaders in the first place? Do they know what Wanjiku, Atieno or Ndambuki wants? Do they understand we are tired of looking for greener pastures elsewhere? We need them here!!!!!!! Kenyans outside would want to come back where they are free to do anything. To be free of racial discriminations, to get jobs near their homes and without ridicule.

And politics has everything to do with it!!!! They need to know we are tired of feeding their big stomachs on our taxes; we cannot afford to fuel their guzzlers and build them palatial homes.

Don’t flaunt to us persons and make them look like angels. I imagine such persons being one Mutula Kilonzo (the President’s Lawyer) who is stinking rich and has a reputation worse than Kiunjuri he of the famous K-street scandal. (You can read between the lines).

Let them give us Leader speeches. Like that Obama presented to Kenyans at Taifa Hall in the UON. Not some things like “Kalonzo na mpira na Kibaki anafunga”. It is time Kenyans refuse to be treated like idiots. We have moved from “Mulu Mutisya kind of public addresses”. We no longer laugh at “hanging bottles” meaning lights jokes.

We can only sympathise with Njenga Karume’s Wananichi or is it wenye inchi for his apparent lack of education.

I can imagine attending a rally that a man by the name Danson Mungatana warns people that he is such a man that when it comes to women he talks of “Tutawazalisha Mapacha”. That is total B/S. or Kiraitu Murungi’s careless statement “it is like raping a woman who is only too willing” triple BS.

Don’t create them leaders for us; let’s see how they were made. You talk of the rainbow dream,. You know very well there is no such dream. Sometimes I wonder for whom does the media speak for? For whom?

The media is so corrupt, so tribal and so compromised and it is so evident .Clean your house first. But it is obvious; a monkey cannot adjudge matters of the forest.

It is not hard to find out that the management in NMG read from the Mount Kenya region and for the Standard it’s well the lake side and its environs. So who shall speak for the people of Ukambani, the people of the Coast Province and NEP? And that alignment defines their editorial policies.

And I will challenge the media to rise above the political wrangles, party affiliations, and tribal sickness and stop being used.

It is high time they tell it like it is. No one is going to kill them. Coalitions as we have come to realize are just like marriages, that one party become worse after the coalition cake has finished and that person either puts up or shuts up for the coalition to work.

Don’t give us coalition politics again and make it look like it’s a match made in heaven.

I know without doubt that the euphoria in 2007 will be created and hyped. It makes good business sense. I mean we have to know the party whores. Those whose political careers are broken because they cannot affiliate themselves with hooliganism (the politically correct word here is “going to the grassroots”) and rowdy youths (remember William Ruto and YK92).

And then those are the same people you want to govern us again? With their criminal records? Have you forgotten that William Ruto was a teacher who rose to be quite a rich man when he played the formers president’s side kick? Has your memory faded to the point you cannot remember the deaths caused in that 91-92 scandal.

Do you need any memory techniques because there is some where I can get them for free? I have the same problem too only mine does not affect the nation.

Do you need to be reminded that just 3 years ago, Kanu and LDP were strange bedfellows? That very few marriages work for the second time. Their marriage didn’t work out and it will not work and we will be back to the basics in 2008/9.

While the youth well young people meet to front their political agenda, as they do sometimes; believe me they don’t make headline News. But something as small as some fools looking for a registration certificate or Ngilu announcing she is ditching Kibaki who cares. Inakaa masaa ya Ngilu imeisha ya kuwa president. I got mad respect for that woman though. I like what she has done in her ministry of Health.

We know the media is a business outfit but its not like they have any competition anyway.

I like what the NMG and SG do when they bring us those pull out on careers, finances and hell there is a lot more in their newspapers. I mean if you totally can ignore the first 4 pages you will find abundance of opportunities and entertainment (read horoscopes, crossword and what is showing in the movies).

But on politics, leadership and governance; They have totally failed us.