KOT has failed Kenyans

I visited a website owned by a popular twitter ‘bigwig’ (CyprianNyakundi) only to be shocked by what I saw on his timeline. There was a photo of the deputy president William Ruto and the newly appointed FKF boss Nick Mwendwa during a recent event. The photo is captioned "Nick Mwendwa handing a ball to Kenya's high priest of corruption William Ruto. I find this caption disrespectful and inappropriate.

These kind of bloggers bought twitter followers and are now being used and paid by political rivals to taint the image of their rivals. There was also another ‘photoshoped’ picture of a bruised Wetangula with the caption, "Wetangula hospitalized after being beaten by his wife"

These are just but a few examples of the level of immaturity portrayed by Kenyans on Twitter. Twitter which was once meant to be social media has turned into mainstream media with the ability to hire and fire public officials. It is filled with dirt and ethnic based politics. This platform created by Kenyans on twitter (KOT) has now turned into a fighting ground between the opposition and the government with the sole aim of remaining relevant and discrediting opponents.

In Kenya, many followers on Twitter is enough to earn you a job in either government or the opposition, you could also become a personal assistant to a politician. This trend is however dangerous as this rivalry on twitter could extend to public institutions and places of work.

A good examples is what happened in the university of Eldoret and Massai Mara University where students and lectures were fighting over ethnicity issues. Politicians currently have twitter mercenaries whose sole responsibility is to promote their propaganda and agendas on twitter. This is a very worrying trend.

Bloggers causing tension and spreading hatred among communities should be sued and banned from using social media. A recent statistic ranked Kenya as the 3rd most corrupt country in the world. I consider KOT as one of the factors that led to this ranking. I woke up every morning in 2015 just to find another corruption hash tag. By doing so Kenyans are exposing their dirty linen in public. Let us allow responsible authorities deal with corruption cases before tweeting recklessly based on assumptions, speculations and unproven allegations. Let us shun bloggers with self-interests whose main agenda is to make money out of politicians. Let us show the world how great Kenya is and sooner or later we will be credited as the least corrupt nation.