All national newspapers splashed retired President Daniel Arap Moi’s 90th birthday celebration on their front pages. TVs gave the story prime time slots. This was okay as Moi is among the county’s most prominent personalities having been president for 24 years and staying in politics longer than any Kenyan alive.
Anniversaries and commemorations make excellent subjects for journalistic stories. However, media’s treatment of the Moi anniversary stories left many readers and media watchers wondering.
The praise-singer approach adopted by practically all media was surprising.
Instead of giving a rounded picture of the historical subject and earnest and honest reports on his public life , media instead chose to paint a brilliant picture of a person whose performance as a leader has unanimously been adjudged as not having been up to scratch.
If there was any doubt that certain slackness is slowly but surely slinking into the media, this Moi birthday story was enough to confirm this, which is very unfortunate for a media that should be among Africa’s best.
To begin with, the most prominent media decided to rely on clearly partisan sources on perspectives on the retired president. The biggest newspaper, the Daily Nation relied on Moi’s grit-in-chief, press secretary of many years, Lee Njiru, for comments on the Mzee’s public life.
Now to expect a beneficiary such as Njiru to provide an objective account is not just to be naïve; it is to be plain dim-witted. Of course such a source would use the chance to correct any negative impressions that might have existed. Njiru did exactly that, embellishing his observations with the most positive of adjectives.
Media that pretended to have done some documentary research quoted mostly from the retired president’s authorized biography written by Andrew Morton.
Was it that difficult for media to seek alternative sources of information about Moi and his many years in public life? Such sources are legion. One need not look far. We have the politicians – those who worked with him and those he persecuted, veteran journalists, former senior civil servants, his associates and relatives – including his children, servants, name it.
There is also plenty of documentary evidence – biographies of men like Duncan Ndegwa, Njenga Karume, Jeremiah Kiereini, official record books, Hansard reports, archives, and the many reports authored by the various commissions and committees. Most of these are easily available.
Because of the reluctance or failure to do their homework, media ended up giving readers what every Kenyan above 30 years already knows about Moi. People who bought newspapers on September 2 (newsstands were busy on that day) wanted to learn something new about the man. To their disappointment, what they got was a mere summary of Moi’s life, and his life in public service at that.
Nothing was written about his life outside the public – except, of course, that the old man prefers boiled green maize and tea for breakfast.
Professional writers of anniversary or commemorative stories know that if you’re writing about a person, you don’t focus solely on their list of accomplishments; there are other things that went on in their life that might be of interest.
Other than the political battles he fought and won, did he not encounter other serious dilemmas? Does he have any idiosyncrasies? Was he a member of clubs or associations such as the Freemason? Apart from his well-known sons, two of whom are in political leadership (Gideon, the Baringo Senator and Raymond, the Rongai MP), who are the other relatives and relationships, and how have they faired on. Is everyone is his family as successful as the patriarch?
Of particular interest to readers would have been his relationship with his wife Lena, before and after their estrangement. How did he manage life as a bachelor for those many years he was president, and even before. Is marriage (or lack of it) a factor in longevity?
And why did media not to try to enlighten us on how different Kenya would have been if Moi hadn’t been president. What if he had not been leader, how would the country have evolved?
To put it mildly, by failing to interrogate Moi’s life as Kenya’s president of 24 years on that important anniversary day, media failed to live up to their billing.
Instead of seizing the rare opportunity to make a strong statement on the effects of a bad leader on society and the social and political circumstances that shape bad leaders, media made a poor attempt to cleanse an obviously controversial personality.
The cherry treatment of the Moi anniversary story proved that Kenya’s professional media are slowly been losing consciousness of their place in society. Reading the stories one who would have been forgiven for thinking that they were reading about one of Africa’s outstanding statesmen, and not about just another strongman.
Having said that, perhaps it should not surprise that the media chose to treat the Moi anniversary story the way they did. Unfortunately, we are witnessing the return of sycophancy journalism of yesteryears when media, even the so called independent ones, were mere megaphones of the ruling elite. It doesn’t help that Moi’s political sons are the ones now in power.
Were media afraid of the wrath of the “digital duo” if they gave an objective account of the historical Moi? Mind you, so succulent is the government advertising fruit that no media house with a sense of business would dare antagonize the person holding it.
As if this is not bad enough, a significant percentage of media enterprises are in the hands of the present and former ruling elite. Notably, the Moi controls the Standard Group – proprietors of The Standard newspaper, Kenya Television Network, Radio Jambo, among others. President Uhuru Kenyatta owns MediaMax – proprietors of K24 and the People Daily newspaper – a newspaper that is distributed free of charge to readers, while the rest retail at Sh60 a copy.
Self-serving media are not worth the respect society accords them, and are in fact a threat to democracy as they do not promote free flow of objective information and divergent views. Media that are beholden to the ruling class simply empower the already powerful voices and at the same time disempower the weak.
As media were feting Moi, the civil society was mourning a victim of the Nyayo era dictatorship, Odindo Opiata. His former comrade Prof Makau Mutua had, in his regular column in the Sunday Standard blamed the state for Opiata’s death. The late was a human rights defender.
While acres and acres of space were allocated the anniversary, including animated pictures on front pages, the Opiata story made mere fillers in the press that bothered to write about him. Only Prof Mutua and Father Gabriel Dolan eulogized the man in their weekend columns.
By cowing before the powerful, media are inadvertently undermining themselves. No wonder politicians are now so emboldened that they have enacted laws oppressive to media, and are in fact threatening to enact more.
Last year, Parliament passed the Kenya Information Communication (Amendment) Act (KICA Bill) 2013 which creates a Communication and Multimedia Appeals
Tribunal, which falls under the state controlled Communication Authority;
The Tribunal has power to impose hefty fines on media houses and journalists, recommend de-registration of journalists and make any order on freedom of expression.
Parliament also passed the Media Council ACT 2013 that establishes the Media Council of Kenya, and the Media Council’s Complaints Commission. Media institutions are in court contesting the constitutionality of the laws
Some historians did not spare the media for the sloppiness in marking Moi anniversary. Daniel Branch was not amused that the media had attempted to re-write history. In an article in the Daily Nation, he fell short of accussing the media of revisionism.
Branch was particularly critical of the personification of Moi as “professor of politics”. According to him, this might only have applied to Moi’s methods of outwitting his opponents to establish himself firmly in power, and otherwise there was nothing professorial about his rule. “There was nothing subtle, sophisticated or intelligent about the way Moi kept hold on power”, he wrote.
On his 90th birthday, Moi should have been remembered as the president who wrecked the economy, leaving it on its knees by the time he retired in 2002. Surely corruption and land grabbing must have been the hallmark of his presidency.
He should have been remembered as the president that continued with process of dismantling the independent constitution, a practice started by Jomo Kenyatta. His misuse of the law to entrench himself and Kanu is power should have been of interest to the journalistic writer of the anniversary story
His persecution of political opponents and civil rights activists, including university students, some hardly out of their teens, should have occupied more space and more airtime. The political murders and ethnic cleansing mainly the Rift Valley should have been highlighted.
Views of some of the victims of his misrule should have been prominently captured (only foreign media, mainly BBC, spoke with some). Men whose businesses and careers were wrecked should equally have been approached for comments. Close associates and relatives should have candidly talked about the private persona of the retired big man.
By profusely celebrating the Nyayo “error”, media lost an opportunity to condemn poor leaders and bad leadership. They also lost an opportunity to promote good leadership qualities.
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