Why Uhuru should not assent to the tyrannical bill

Reading a local daily's headline makes you want to apply for a crash course in King Julien's Kingdom of physically fit lemurs. Because, very soon, we will be called upon to start running battles with those rogue MPs along Parliament Road. If President Uhuru Kenyatta assents to that tyrannical bill, it will be, officially, a crime to say anything MPs don't like; which includes, but not limited to; alerting my MP that his fly is open or just pointing out that his degree certificate resembles a Sabina Joy tissue paper. It is an affront to our basic freedoms. It is a bad law.

Many people see this a timely welcome to gag the media, who, they say, deserves Karma for their 'socialite news coverage'. This is where we must draw the line, because this law affects us all.

Journalism, practised right, is the noblest profession world over. Sakina Mohammed, of KBC, once told me, in one of the media training classes I attended, that if I ever forget everything I learnt regarding journalism, let me not forget that "getting the facts right is the cardinal principle of journalism." That I should always strive for accuracy, give all the relevant facts and ensure that they have been checked. And whenever I found it impossible to corroborate information I should always never hesitate to say so. In my Anthropology practise, I have found these words of wisdom extremely handy.

The standards of our journalism is not the best, admittedly. More can be done to restore public faith in a profession littered with state blackmail, political coercion, police brutality, ethnic dogma and corporate greed. Journalism, in it's raw form, is the riskiest, and most volatile, profession - after ICC witnessing and boda boda riding. An affront to journalists is a direct attack to journalism.

Journalists are trained to do no harm. What they publish, or broadcast, may be hurtful to families and friends of a few, but their intentions are always for the greater, public, good. If the President is spotted waving a chequered flag at the Monza Formula 1 Grand Prix while 20 odd quarry-workers are having their brains blown off in wild Mandera, it is in the interest of the nation to know that their President doest care anymore. While his family and friends may not be happy with the headlines that day, journalism exists to prick their conscience and prevent a recurrence of state insensitivity and carelessness.

Newspapers are not flowers to take to your girlfriends, and mistresses, every evening. If Uhuru signs that thing into law, he would have set this country on a revolutionary path.

Let me call King Julien.