It’s an election year and media houses are positioning themselves by recruiting the best journalists and political analysts. Citizen TV has taken up Jeff Koinange to juice up political interviews and has retained Prof Edward Kisiang’ani as resident analyst. Daily Nation and Standard are also getting the finest political writers to their side.
Today, the People Daily introduced a curious political analyst by the name NICK ILONDU, who has launched his career by writing a piece on how Raila Odinga and his Party ODM plan to scuttle the next elections slated for August 8th, under the cover headline “ODM Tactics to Scuttle August Poll”.
The article bases its argument on legal and other actions taken by the Raila Odinga-led Orange Democratic Movement wing of NASA against the Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC). “The intention is interpreted by political experts aimed at stopping the August General Election through legal mischief,” says ILONDU. He argues that the party wants to make it impossible for the commission to hold the election. Scenarios envisioned show that a constitutional crisis would ensue and, in the thick of tension, the stage would be ripe to insist on a care-taker government.
“To make this happen, the stalemate could necessitate calling in a ‘Mediator’ or something of a Kofi Annan. After a few months of ‘bandit negotiations’, the agitating side would hope to be given half (or part) of the government,” he writes on. “If they can get this without elections, why bother with an election? If you can get power using ‘Bandit Democracy’, why waste money on ‘Participatory Democracy’?”
Sounds familiar? Well, the logic, language and diction point to a very familiar, and prominent, political analyst in town. His name is MUTAHI NGUNYI. Mr Ngunyi, whose column at the Sunday Nation, was terminated due to conflict of interest issues, has reincarnated under the pseudo name of NICK ILONDU, people familiar with Mediamax issues have confirmed.
Business Today has learned that Mediamax has engaged Mutahi Ngunyi, whose world on politics is still taken seriously by lay people in spite of lacking a strong media presence, to drive an anti-Raila propaganda and build a strong reputation for Raila. The scheme was crafted at State House by Uhuru Kenyatta’s handlers to use People Daily, which the president controls, as such other newspapers would not carry such content.
Reliable sources had hinted to Business Today yesterday about Mutahi Ngunyi beginning a column in PD from today, Friday March 10th, only for it to come in a pseudo name. In fact, Ngunyi had twitted on March 3 about his show and the column. Mutahi Ngunyi would want to hide his name for obvious reasons. The main one being, he’s a political consultant who doesn’t want to be seen to take sides. Secondly, if it’s widely known that he is a propagandist for hire by one side of the political divide, that would irredeemably harm his reputation.
It is worth noting that his new Election Watch column in the People Daily, comes barely a week after launching his Fifth Estate TV show on K24, also owned by Mediamax. The show, which started last Sunday and will be screened at 9PM every Sunday until election time, is a production of Mutahi Ngunyi, in which he gives his analysis on politics of the day. The first edition, Can Raila Force A Run-off?, started with noting that all is not well in NASA and advising the opposition to split up into the elections and unite after for the run-off!
It is more than a coincidence especially given that Mediamax, which runs K24 and People Daily, is owned by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s family. Raila is likely to run against Uhuru in the next elections, making Mutahi Ngunyi’s new project and agenda not so hard to see.
