Unless you live in a cave you should have known by now that Kenya’s biggest telecom giant Safaricom is suing Cyprian Nyakundi for defamation. Nyakundi who is a blogger woes’ began when he when he wrote an article that we as well can’t publish for the fear of falling in Nyakundi’s same fate. Nyakundi boast of a huge social media followership especially on twitter where his followership is bigger than those of notable politicians such as the President.
Former Radio Queen Caroline Mutoko feel that besides the tweets we’ve been sending we haven’t done enough to help the blogger, and do I say I concur.
Check it out:
Poor Nyakundi – We are shallow, insincere and worst of all, hypocrites. This nonsense with Nyakundi is hard to behold. Not the legal case – no that’s fine – let it run its course to its natural conclusion whichever that may be. I believe we must test the instruments of justice and our constitution to see if they can stand the test. What I really can’t stomach is the pretentious “support’ for Nyakundi on social media. As Nyakundi was headed to court expected to see some real support – not lip or finger service but real support. Warm bodies around
him. I expected to see all those who “stand” by him set up an Airtel Money line or an Orange Money line and raise his legal fees. I expected to see a gang of “cheated” supporters escort Nyakundi to court.
I expected to see a massive drive on socialmedia leading to lines outside Airtel and Orange stores as people ditched their Safaricom lines and opted for anything else.
But no. All Nyakundi got was a trending hashtag.
As I watched NyakundivsSafaricom trend on
twitter last night (08/07/2017) and then fade
into nothing I got sad for Nyakundi and
slowly like a boiling pot, I got really angry.
My fellow Kenyans – We are shallow and
insincere and worse of all hypocritical.
All this yapping on Twitter. Done on
Safaricom lines & yet no-one has offered to
foot the bill for Nyakundi. Including Boni
Mutetezi with this “supportive” tweet. Really?
I was hoping everyone supporting him on
Twitter would show up at the law courts, but
alas – it was Jimnah Mbaru & Peter Kenneth
all over again. Lots of noise on social media,
no show where it matters.
In a libel case – the burden of proof is on the
accused. One must prove & show evidence
backing the statement/s made. I hurt for
Nyakundi. He was probably used and now he
is on his own. No-one even bothers to give
him a little free advice. No-one has told him
that courts don’t take it kindly when one is
trying to use public opinion to sway a court
decision. Poor Nyakundi can’t even call
witnesses to prove his case. None of you will
show up anyway. Worse still – he has already violated a gag
order. He was not supposed to discuss
Safaricom in any form or manner on any of
his platforms. Only a lawyer or a “friend/
supporter” with a legal mind would have
made him understand that he is no longer at
war with Safaricom – the judge is in-charge
now and he is breaking the law. Mikhail –
@Kosgeybett tweeted earlier today “Nyakundi
busy violating a court order, the **** is yet to
pull down the Safaricom defamation tweets.” .
If only Nyakundi had a lawyer or a real
friend. If only. But the worst thing about all this is not our
pretentious selfish nature. No. What’s really
sad is that we will end up creating another
bitter kid who does not trust anyone and has
a lot of influence. From here onwards he will
be selfish and only care about himself like a
certain blogger who will remain unnamed.
Worse still, this bitter kid will probably be
used to spin shit in 2017.
I look at Boniface Mwangi and I see
Nyakundi. I’m very fond of Boniface Mwangi,
and he knows it, but sometimes all I see is a
gun for hire – and I’m fine with it. We bailed
out on Boniface when he needed us. We
encouraged Boniface, re-tweeted and shared
his stuff – but when he really needed our
help, we stayed in our offices and gave him
retweets and likes. Yeah that’s right – that’s
who we are. Please note that I have been to a police
station to get Boniface and he remembers it
even when I had forgotten.
You misled Nyakundi and when he got into
trouble you bailed out….
That’s who we are. Martha Karua wanted to
fight for rule of law, Peter Kenneth had a
track record of delivering as an MP, Jimnah
Mbaru had a real plan and zeal for the job –
but we elected people who had court cases in
human rights violation and land grabbing and
expected better. Let the courts handle
NyakundivsSafaricom – what the rest of us
need to do is introspect and ask ourselves
how long and far will we go with this
pretentious, hypocritical, shallow state of
affairs? How long and who stands to lose
and who gains. As I was having this
conversation with a friend – he decided to
show me that he clearly understood my
disgust. He said:
“Let me tell you a story *pulls stool*
A friend, wants to pursue his dream of
studying mechanical engineering in Russia. I
didn’t know he didn’t have fees to get into
the course cause he went last year. So I was
taken aback when he told me for a year he
was learning Russian to be able to enroll
into uni. So he started a campaign on-line to
raise money for uni. I donated what I could
last week in 5 minutes. The donation page
has been viewed over 6K times. Only 10
donations. I see people urging others to
donate and they haven’t even done it
themselves, I’m like – What hypocrites.
Same thing happening to Nyakundi.”
End Of Story.
End of rant.
Stay Warm. Be real.
Boni Khalwale’s son Leon Lidigu, who is also
a blogger gave this response to Caroline.
Dear Caroline Mutoko. great piece and insight
you have there on my best friend Cyprian Is
Nyakundi .. 1 Nyakundi has not tweeted
anything on Safaricom ever since the gag
order . As far as i know a retweet is not an
endorsement . Secondly you are right . Most
‘close ‘ friends of Nyakundi have not called in
even to check on how the case is going ,that
is the truth . Pretentious indeed ! Thirdly my
journalistic interest in this case is actually
understanding exactly how the media can
totally give a black out to a plight so real
,affecting many Kenyans who work at
Safaricom as raised by Cyprian Nyakundi .
Have we failed as journalists to an extent
that we let big cooperates who we go to bed
with for AdS bully and oppress Kenyans and
get so afraid of highlighting it only because
we might be dumped ? Are we now serving
money or human interest as Jounalists ?
Acoustic shock syndrome is real and is
affecting hundreds of Kenyans working at
Safaricom . This is the issue here ,Nyakundi
did exactly what our media is so much afraid
of doing and Safaricom Kenya Official Page is
so much annoyed with him. Are we becoming
slaves in our own country ? We are good at
filling our news bulletins with the likes of
Duale and Matsanga which do not add value
to Kenyans lives but we turn a blind eye to
such a detrimental issue . I am so ashamed
madam .
By @LeonLidigu