Caroline Mutoko, KISS FM breakfast show presenter has written an article on www.frankierants.com here relating to how the media handled the comments made by NO leaders after the Uhuru park grenade attack which has now left 6 dead and tens injured. She has also commented on the "lies" being spread by the NO campaigners.
It is all good what Caroline has said. BUT something is not adding up from Caroline's angle. I listened to her KISS show in the morning. She spent most of the morning condemning some of the comments made by NO church leaders last night after the attack especially so called Apostle Nga'ng'a of Neno evangelism who accused the YES team as the ones behind the attack and went ahead to curse whoever was behind the attack. This infuriated Caroline and she termed it as the height of incitement in her breakfast show and called upon the police to arrest the pastor. More sad is that KISS aired callers who turned the show into a NO bashing show almost to the extent of justifying the grenade attack.
Caroline was more angered by the claims made by the NO team than the fact that someone had the audacity to detonate 3 grenades in the midst of a Kenyan gathering. To me, the attack is so wrong, evil and diabolic and should be condemned in the strongest terms possible. No one should be bombed in Kenya! For whatever reasons. Whether they are mad, liars, rumour mongers, thieves or saints. Even the serial killer is enjoying police protection and has not been submitted to a firing squad.
This line of thinking is unfortunately being propagated even on the Internet. Justifying statements like "why did they advertise for a prayer rally and turn it into a NO rally?" Or why did they bring kids to a political rally? Or why did it end late in the night? Or why is the church spreading lies and propaganda about the new constitution? Or why is the church hating and inciting the muslims in regard to Kadhi courts?
No one should be bombed in Kenya - For whatever reasons! That should have been the bottom line and KISS FM presenters should have spent more time in their shows condemning the grenade attack if they are really passionate about Kenya. Caroline has the right to condemn any hate speech and inciteful statements but this morning, the condemnation of the attack itself did not come out strongly enough.
As for the Kenyan media, it is now clear that they are not as objective and professional and just like the rest of Kenyans, they also learnt no lessons from the 2007/8 post election violence, how sad! Some of these media houses in their love for reforms, YES and a new constitution by August by all means has turned their anger, insults, hate and frustration on the NO team leaders especially the church leaders.
Early in the year, the media owners/managers met and resolved to give a black out to any forces against the new constitution. This resolve had the church leaders struggle to get attention on the issues they felt were contentious and unacceptable to them and needed to be ironed out before a national referendum.
The church leaders to their advantage had the pulpit as a campaign platform every Sunday. Soon their voice could not be ignored. Unfortunately, by the time the church had caused enough commotion to attract attention, the referendum train had taken off.
To the disadvantage of the church leaders in the NO team, the designers of the referendum train saw no need to design a braking system, like what a good engineer would do. That however has not weakened the determination of the church leaders to bring down the draft constitution come August 4th. Coupled with the disorganized and biased civic education by COE and the arrogance of the YES team, this has confused many media houses who have thrown caution to the wind.
I digress. Caroline has access to media moguls in Kenya and should direct her media anger to akina Linus Gitahi, Wachira Waruru, Rose Kimotho, Jeff Koinange and Paul Melly of KTN. She has their ears. Kenyans believe she is aggressive enough to get the attention of these media owners and managers and have the TV and radio stations behave so as not to repeat the mistakes of 2007/8. If she can't take such a step, she is just like the rest of us who are listening, covering and airing comments made by every mad man in a suit.
Raila Odinga on Uhuru Park Blasts:
"It is not the mistake of the Intelligence forces that a prayer rally could have been converted into a political rally. What could the Intelligence do? Nothing! ...the rally apparently went beyond the prescribed 6pm time....let us stop speculating that it was the YES camp that carried out the attack to stop the NO camp or that it is the NO camp ostensibly to get sympathy votes."
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