Tribalism At The Daily Nation: How Will It Affect The General Elections In Kenya 2007?

Insiders are only too aware of the fierce tribal office politics that has dogged Kenya's leading media house, the Nation Media group for years now. But what is of serious concern is how it will influence the coverage of the general elections expected later this year.

The public is bound to have a very short memory and therefore many have forgotten about the controversy that emerged during the November 2005 referendum that put the Nation newspapers on the spotlight with accusations of unfair or slanted coverage mainly coming from the Orange side. It took a number of closed door meetings at the Nation House with party representatives to sort that one out. But now the general elections loom large in the horizon where the stakes are much higher than they were in November 2005.

A recent incident at the Daily newspaper only serves to confirm analysts worst fears. It is said that an employee of the daily newspaper was sacked by a top editor at the newspaper who happens to belong to the Luo tribe, only to be re-instated by another senior editor who happens to belong to the house of Mumbi.

The incident sent shockwaves through the entire media fraternity and served to highlight the tribal politics that has always played out below the surface at Kenya's most popular daily and influenced many key decisions.

Insiders know that the best journalists in the profession happen to hail from the Luo community (there is a historical reason but that is a story for another day) and yet at the Nation there has always been a deliberate effort to frustrate and ensure that the influence of journalists who hail from that community is kept to a bare minimum. The chief architects of that campaign (and this may be a mere coincidence) have always hailed from—you guessed it—the house of Mumbi.

Nobody who does little research will find that talented journalists have been overlooked for promotion and other hounded to the door and the list of these injustices is rather long.

This is exactly the kind of post that convinces some casual readers of this site that the person who writes this blog is from the Luo community and that it is a Raila blog. Both allegations are false and my aim is only to expose the truth to Kenyans and I have no affiliations to any tribe ad neither do I have the slightest preferences. If I was a tribalist then Kalonzo Musyoka's bid for the presidency would have received plenty of good, positive coverage from this blog. As it is, the sort of mood that I have been forced into these days, will not allow me to spare even my own deceased mother if any whiff of corruption or past sins linked to her, emerged today. I kid you not, I would not hesitate to expose her.

The problem at the Nation has persisted for years and it is amazing how the effects it has had on the running of the newspaper have been so minimal. However as we head towards an election where the two largest tribes in Kenya are likely to face off, (just like they did in the referendum) those in the know have reason to worry. More so because of the Nation newspaper's influence on public opinion, which is powerful enough to decide the forthcoming elections.