President-elect William Ruto has blocked local media houses such as Citizen TV, NTV, KTN, K24 TVand TV47 among others from airing live his Presidential swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday 13th September at Kasarani stadium.
Instead, Dr. Ruto has contracted an international company for his inauguration, leaving much anger and frustration to local media outlets.
The company contracted is known as Live Eye and the aim of using it for the broadcast is to air to all countries across the continent. Other than Live Eye, state-owned broadcaster KBC will get live access.
Unlike other national events where most Kenyan media outlets get exclusive coverage, the blocked media houses will be getting a live feed from the national broadcaster KBC, free of charge.
It is believed that the privately owned channels were denied the rights to Livestream content due to their biased coverage of Azimio presidential candidate, Raila Odinga during the campaign period. William Ruto was given little airtime on the channels.
Linus Kaikai: Citizen journalists hiding their identity due to SK’s support for Raila
The news has sparked lots of reactions from Kenyans and also the media houses themselves who are seen throwing words at each other in form of proverbs.
KBC was excited to announce that they would get unmatched coverage among Kenyan stations and wrote, ‘He who digs a grave for his enemy might as well be digging one for himself.’
KBC: No matter how far an eagle flies up the sky, it will definitely come down to look for food. – African proverb
Private stations responded by quoting the bible and historical philosophers
KTN News: Fortune favors the brave
TV47: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone – Psalm 118.
NTV: Nothing good ever comes of violence – Martin Luther King
President-elect William Ruto previously stated that KBC would return to its former glory under his leadership and will become a commercial entity.
“It must operate differently otherwise nobody is going to advertise, we must run KBC as a commercial entity, it must make money, it must run itself we cannot continue to fund KBC from public coffers,” Ruto stated earlier/
He argued that the downfall of KBC was mainly because it was used as a mouthpiece for anyone in government to air their views, hence losing credibility. Ruto said that it must be objective and balanced and not a place to report the president from Morning to Evening.
The CEO of Media Council of Kenya, David Omwoyo said that for KBC to take a turn for the better, it would depend on strategies, government policies and media trends.
“It’s a wait-and-see depending on strategies. For KBC it’s a bag of mixed fortunes depending on government policies and media trends.” He said.
Attending the Presidential swearing-in ceremony will be 20 heads of state, 2000 VIP leaders and 60,000 Kenyans at least.
That is Kenya they want, we have nothing to do or say about it. To us I don’t think it affects us much but they themselves. I know one thing for the incoming government that it’s going to be everybody for himself but God for us all.