The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) chief executive wants political activist Mutahi Ngunyi charged with incitement. Mboya wrote to the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) over inciteful social media hate speeches made by Ngunyi against a specific community.
Mboya submits that the words uttered by Ngunyi are intended to incite feelings of contempt, hostility and violence against a community on the basis of ethnicity – an offence under Section 62 of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) Act.
‘Mentally enslaved’
“My attention has been drawn to the contents of the Twitter account of one Mutahi Ngunyi…” writes Mboya. “In particular, the posts target members of a specific community as lacking individuality and in a state of mental slavery, assertions that are not only false but may very well constitute hate speeches directed at specific members of a community for which I am a member.
In his tweets, Ngunyi describes the Luo as mentally enslaved by Cord leader Raila Odinga, who the activist asserts owes the community money that he has been unwilling to pay. Ngunyi goes further to say that a majority of the Luo live below the poverty line, something he attributes to Raila Odinga’s doing.
Ngunyi is the latest in a number of public figures who have taken to social media to post hate messages against entire communities, casting the spotlight on public integration spearheaded by the NCIC, largely perceived as a toothless watchdog owing to its inability to charge prominent individuals.
A day after Mboya’s letter to the NCIC, Ngunyi was quoted in the dailies as saying he “unreservedly apologised to the Luo Nation, and that he intended no harm”.
If no action is taken against him, he will join a clique that has got away with a slap on the wrist for incitement, a charge that should ordinarily attract stern punishment to both act as a deterrent and contain the spread of hate messages.^
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