Kiambu County governor aspirant Ferdinand Waititu failed to show up for an interview on Citizen TV last evening on which he was set to go head to head with his rival and incumbent William Kabogo. [ Check video at the end]
Kiambu County governorship aspirants had been invited to the JKL Live Show yesterday night, including Dr James Nyoro, but only Kabogo honoured the invitation. It is not clear why Waititu declined the interview , but social media enthusiasts are arguing that perhaps he feared being humiliated on issue-based debates.
This has been taken to mean he snubbed the interview, a rare thing in Kenya where politicians fight for publicity and even pay huge amounts of money for it. He missed a chance to put up his case through Kenya’s number one TV station on a show hosted by Jeff Koinange, one of the country’s senior-most journalists.
This left Kabogo, a soft-spoken politician but a schemer of no mean repute, to hog the space and airwaves to his advantage and even throw barbs at his opponent for fearing to take on him on the bench. But it denied the show the expected war of words and fireworks between the two antagonists.
HOW IT WENT DOWN
Right to decline interview
In media, an interview subject has a right to decline an invitation if he feels the interview is likely to be hostile or has other reservations. JKL is a freestyle interview where the host leaves subjects to their own devices. This strategy, while a crowd puller through the altercations that ensue, has in the past landed Jeff in trouble with the law. The most recent was in October last year when a male guest, Miguna Miguna, made snide remarks against Esther Passaris, which ended up killing the show on KTN.
Waititu came second in the 2013 Nairobi gubernatorial race and appears to be preparing for a bruising battle in the August general elections. The two have hard and love-hate kind of relationship. In 2016, Kabogo took Waititu to court over allegations that the Kabete legislator had committed some serious fraud against his own people.
Sometime back Kabogo challenged Waititu’s academic credentials and even sued the legislator to prove that he was indeed a graduate and even produced paper evidence showing that the MP had forged certificates. Waititu accused Kabogo of attempting to forge his academic documents to discredit his (Waititu) academic credentials to bar him from contesting for public office.
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