Government Accused Of Disinformation On ODM By Star Reporter Tuesday, July 29, 2014 IS the Government deliberately dis-informing Kenyans? Yesterday Cord accused the Government of engaging in propaganda in a massive bid to divert attention from rising insecurity nationwide. Before Cord leader Raila Odinga arrived from the US at the end of March, where he had spent almost three months, Jubilee legislators including Mike Sonko and Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichungwa claimed that he had raised a lot of money from unidentified people to destabilize the Government. When Raila and his Cord brigade went on a series of rallies to demand dialogue with the Government, senior officials told the media that the ODM leader was planning a coup on Saba Saba Day. And then they hatched a plot to arrest him and other Cord leaders. When violence broke out in Lamu, Interior Secretary Joseph ole Lenku told a media conference outside Harambee House, the Office of the President, that Kenyans know Railas record, as he linked the Opposition to the violence. In a televised Address to the Nation, President Kenyatta also blamed local political networks for the violence. “The attack in Lamu was well-planned, orchestrated, and politically-motivated ethnic violence against a Kenyan community, with the intention of profiling and evicting them for political reasons. This, therefore, was not an al Shabaab terrorist attack,” Uhuru said. A week later, the Secretary went to a church in Muranga, where he announced that the Opposition was recruiting Mombasa Republican Council and Mungiki leaders to cause chaos. Both MRC and Mungiki are proscribed organizations. Last Thursday, the Secretary issued a statement claiming that the Opposition was promising prospective voters fake land allocations in exchange for referendum signatures. The Opposition says it has yet to start taking signatures. On Friday, Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa sensationally claimed that he has evidence ODM was behind the spate of killings in Likoni. Analysts and Cord politicians say Jubilee has resorted to negative propaganda on grave issues of national interest, a strategy that has tended to escalate matters rather than contain insecurity. All this falls within the pattern of innuendo, slander and disinformation about the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy that Jubilee has engaged in consistently to divert attention from their incompetence in dealing with insecurity in the country, said ODM acting Secretary General Anyang Nyongo yesterday. Other analysts cited the Westgate, Lamu and Likoni insecurity incidents to say Jubilee has fallen short of acting in good faith as far as giving out the correct information on national issues is concerned. “They have only intensified. It was there during the campaigns. Its now a big business, but it has also become obvious to everyone: Jubilee has engaged in disinformation in almost all the issues it has been accused of by its main rival Cord,” Prof Ben Sihanya of the University of Nairobis School of Law said yesterday. He cited Jubilees responses to insecurity, tribalism in government, unemployment and equal opportunities for the youth: “From my little corner, I have myself noted a three-pronged approach entailing outright lies, half-truths and shifting responsibilities. The examples are all over the place.” TNA chairman Johnstone Sakaja strongly objected, saying, “There is no policy, and there cant be any policy, on deliberate disinformation on the part of Jubilee”. He said there is neither intention nor value in Jubilee engaging in a disinformation drive. “After Westgate things were really cleared up. And even then, it was not disinformation. One could argue there were cases of what appeared to be misinformation. But one cannot say the same of disinformation. The difference between the two is stark,” Sakaja said. Senator Mutula Kilonzo however believes the security apparatus may be using Cord as a ruse to cover up their own incompetence. He says the prudent thing is for the person in charge to go home rather than engage the country in a wild goose chase. “They have engaged in what I would call unmitigated political histrionics, and, together with it, deliberate distortion of facts to confuse the public and buy time to sort out their own mess. Sometimes they have done it to obfuscate the truth,” Senator Mutula Junior said yesterday. Kiharu MP Irungu Kangata scoffed at suggestions of a vast disinformation strategy: “This is yet another low for Cord that they have now to invent phantom strategies for us. We are neither aware nor interested in this. Jubilee has been so forthright with information that some people are even accusing us of talking too much”.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:26:36 +0000
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