NAIROBI, KENYANS: Cohesion chair Francis Ole Kaparo has told off opposition leaders on their claim that his commission is being used by the Jubilee administration to frustrate them.
Kaparo dismissed the sentiments made by Siaya Senator James Orengo and Machakos counterpart Johnstone Muthama (both from the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy), describing them as 'outdated tired accusations'.
"We are not political appointees. All of us were interviewed and passed by the national assembly which is made up of parliamentarians from both political divides," said Kaparo.
Kaparo said President Uhuru Kenyatta just happened to appoint the commissioners because in every position, there has to be an appointing authority.
Earlier Orengo had claimed that Kaparo's National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) was overstepping its mandate by acting like a prosecutor in alleged hate speech cases.
Orengo went further to allege that NCIC was being used by the Jubilee government to frustrate opposition leaders which would consequently cause animosity.
This was after Muthama was summoned by the commission over yet again another hate speech allegation.
"That is a tired rhetoric. Does Gatundu South legislator MP Moses Kuria come from the same coalition as Senator Muthama or Suna East Junet Mohammed? But we summoned them too. These are people who have nothing else to say," said Kaparo.
Kaparo was speaking on Tuesday during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on curbing hate speech with the Media Council of Kenya(MCK).
MCK boss Haron Mwangi cited vernacular radio stations as the most notorious in hate speech cases.
"In the last two months they have become notorious in their morning and late night talk shows. In fact, we have submitted clips of one of them on request by the NCIC," said Mwangi.
Mwangi lamented that despite journalists adhering to the set rules when reporting on mainstream media, they flout the same rules when on social media.
"Media houses should come up with in-house policies that would guide journalists’ interaction with any media," said Mwangi.
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