Why Are African Politicians Hostile To The Objective Media?
The world has been awoken to utter surprise with the manner in which the minister for internal security in Kenya, the one Joseph Nkaissery, has brutally dealt with the Daily Nation, reporter John Ngirachu, usually covering politics and news from parliament. Nkaissery as a minister of internal security in Kenya used his ministerial powers to order for un-warranted arrest of This Journalist, because he published a story that revealed how Nkaissery and his ministry had corruptly used about Kenya shillings 4 billion.
The Journalist was arrested not for lawful trial in court law, but for detention, brutal treatment and to be manhandled till he mentions the source of his information covered in the story. It was so primitive and illiterate, redolent of those dark days when Daniel Moi used to be the self appointed dictatorial president of Kenya. Good luck the journalist was realeased, courtesy of the civil societies, union of journalists and the oppositional politics in Kenya.
This incidence has only happened as a part of continued political struggle by the governments of the day in Kenya to gag and silence the voice of the objective media. This is so because two weeks ago, Members of the Kenya parliament on the side of the government had introduced a media bill into the legislative process to make a law that would punish any media person, media house and journalist publishing a parliamentary story that is offensive to the Member of Parliament.
The punishment was supposed to a fine of Kenya shillings five million and above or imprisonment to term of not less than seven years. It is a draconian law of the day if at all this bill can be passed into the law. We pray for it to fail on the way. In reflection of such eventualities of tyranny, all Kenyans are not to be mistaken when they as that where is open governance policy promised to them a couple of years ago? Where is the democratic space that Kenyans brought home through the relentless war for democracy during the second liberation? And not to forget, where are governance virtues of the present Jubilee government?
These sorriest efforts towards dictatorship in Kenya have also coincided with similar excesses of politics in Egypt where Hossam Bahgat has been assaulted with grievous injuries and then arrested by the political police on charges of publishing false reports against the Egyptian military. His detention has heightened fears and despair over the state of free expression in Egypt. Hossam Bahgat, is a prominent human rights advocate and journalist, was arrested in Egypt on Sunday. According to Mada Masr, the political news oriented website Bahgat writes for, the 37-year-old is being held on charges of publishing false information under a new law which has sparked intense fear and hopelessness over the future of press freedom in Egypt. The charges stem as an out crop from an October report Bahgat filed about 26 military officers that had been questionably convicted in a court martial for plotting a coup against the state.
Egypt thus shares a human rights tempo with Kenya on the matters of media freedom and objectivity. It is still within the public knowledge that one year has not elapsed since brutal murder of John Kitui the editor and Journalist in Eldoret, working with the Mirror a weekly publication focused on politics, culture, business and lifestyle.Kitui’s death occurred immediately after he had published an objective story about the crimes charges William Ruto is answering at the international criminal court in the Hague. His killers are at large.
In Rwanda things are worse. Many journalists still can't work freely and critical reporting is often suppressed with stern measures like imprisonment without alternatives. This is in sharp contrast with the alleged press freedom and freedom of information in Rwanda's constitution. Recently, the New York based non government organization concerned with media freedom reported that Critical journalists are heavily harassed and have their work impeded by public authorities, random police questioning and anonymous threats.
Uganda is also the same, given president Museven’s intolerance to those not able to recognize his axiomatic disposition. Similarly Tanzania had two ban circulation of the East African, a publication of the national media group. Reasons for the same were not given. However, the East African was the only paper with dissenting voices at that time in Tanzania. The likes of Jeneralli Ulimwengu and Charles Onyabo Obo were not intellectually sychopnatic to the then president Jakaya Kikwete. Thus it was objectivity that caused its banning.
Why African politicians are hostile to the objective media is still a question to be solved through ideological overhaul. It is a paradox of governance. African political leaders must wake up to a clarion call that there is no way a political system can achieve good governance without getting support from the objective media, not compromised media.Accountability,transparence, rule of law, opposition or dialogue, security , human rights and media freedom are compulsory requirements for successful and competent governance. So they must accept and obey.
Alexander Khamala Opicho,
Lodwar, Kenya