Blog Links Nation Media Group Sex Scandal To 2007 General Elections

Blog makes claim that Muiruri was carrying a loaded gun on the day he delivered resignation letter

There are always two sides to every story and it is the intention of this blogger to take every opportunity to table both sides of any story published here.

One story that has been doing the rounds amongst Kenyans all over the world is that of the alleged Nation media group sex scandal involving senior editors at the newspaper. Now a brand new blog has linked the expose of the scandal to the forthcoming general elections and "some people within the company" who want to settle scores. In fact the blog has even gone further and named some of the Nation anonymous bloggers whose "venom" has entertained and shocked worldwide in the saga that many Kenyans have repeatedly said is better than any soap opera or episode of 24 or Prison Break, two very popular suspense-filled-edge-of-the-seat-dramas.

The blog, signed off by a group calling itself the Kitengela 10 (Kitengela is famous for discreet meatesting orgies. Was this an idea that came out of a nyama choma brainstorming session called to come up with a strategy to fighting back?) claims that the whole idea of the sex-scandal emails and postings on the web is to bring down the Nation newspapers and to tame it's power and authority in the forthcoming general elections.

The blog names the main people behind it as crime reporter Stephen Muiruri who was pressurized into resigning for what the bloggers now reveal was not only conflict of interest, but blackmailing government officers and abusing company resources as well. No further details are given. Others named are Nation employees still working in the News room, Patrick Nzioka and Mike Mwaniki whom it is said give occasional help as well as a Joseph Ngure Karanaja who was recently retrenched.

The blog goes on to name the main mastermind of the whole Internet expose as former head of CID Joseph Kamau whom it is claimed has a personal grudge against the Nation. However the Kitengela 10 add that he is also working on behalf of certain politicians, among them Jimmy Wanjigi and Alfie Gitonga, both of whom were involved in the Anglo Leasing mega-scum.

But the bombshell is the claim that on the day former crime reporter Stephen Muiruri went to Nation House to tender his resignation; he was carrying a loaded gun. It is not clear what relevance this has although it is an extremely juicy bit of information. To be fair, Muiruri's style of investigative journalism put his life at great risk and it may not be surprising that he obtained a license to carry around firearms to protect himself.

One thing is very clear and that is the fact that the writer's of this new blog are definitely close to the senior editors at the center of the alleged sex scandal. This hardly qualifies them to be neutral in this unfolding saga.

There are a number of interesting things that I would like to point out about this new blog.

Firstly it is unlikely to attract the sort of interest and attention that the other blog detailing the sexual escapades at the media house has. The reason has nothing to do with the writers or writing style but human nature. Even more interesting is the fact that the blog points out that the allegations are not new and had in fact been published in the gutter press earlier. Does this mean that the bloggers are admitting that the so-called dossier is mostly true?

Even more instructive is the fact that the main post at the new blog concentrates on dispelling specifics in the sex scandal revelations but at no point is it said that all the allegations are false. The clear implication here is that the claims are generally true. One trusted source within the giant media house told this blogger, "the dossier is over 90 percent TRUE."

Still the allegations that the whole thing is a politically motivated mudslinging campaign against the Nation must be considered and investigated, which I am doing and will publish the findings here.

One thing though, has been disturbing this blogger. Wangethi Mwangi has had past cases of sexual harassment brought against him and was therefore what the Americans would call a sitting duck for any would-be attacks from politicians. But one Joseph Odindo is different kettle of fish. This man has been a major influence behind John Githongo and there are those who believe (including this blogger) that he is the main inspiration that Githongo drew on in his decision to go against his father's close friends and do what few other Kenyans have had "the balls" to do. And that is to take on the entire corrupt establishment virtually single-handedly. That says a lot about the character of this man.

Odindo is known to be a very demanding editor but also has immense people-skills (unlike Wangethi) that have seen him remain popular for years. So what happened this time? Could the allegations against him be true?

The burden of proof rests on the anonymous bloggers who must now quickly move to table the evidence that they have long promised.

As many comments have revealed here, what is said to have happened at the Nation is common in corporate circles in Kenya and especially in Nairobi. However the high esteem in which many Kenyans have held the Nation for a long time is the reason why the allegations have been so shocking and disturbing to many.

I was not able to immediately access the so-called Kitengela 10 blog site, so I have reproduced their post below. I will supply the link here later;


The Kitengela Ten: The Truth Behind the so-called Sex Scandal at Nation
March 6th, 2007
The Kitengela Ten

We come to you, the Kilengela Ten, to capture the spirit of freedom of some of the freedom fighters of our times. Press freedom is under attack in Kenya.

This is by way of the most malicious, fictitious, and hateful letter writing that has targeted the Nation Media Group, especially its group editorial director Mr Wangethi Mwangi, and Group Managing Editor Mr Joseph Odindo.

The campaign has since widened to include many other people at Nation Centre including editors like daily Nation’s Bernard Nderitu, Sunday Nation’s Mutuma Mathiu, and senior editor Eric Obino. Some of the women editors are like Lucy Oriango, who we understand is in charge of magazines, Saturday magazine editor Rhoda Orengo, but most particularly Buzz editor Adhyambo Odera, who has attracted the most vitriol, and has been portrayed as the woman who has opened her legs to all men, and got all editors’ zips flying with her big wiggling buttocks.

As if that was not all, the new CEO Mr Linus Gitah has also been dragged in, accused to have wrecked other people’s and his own home by cheating. And that he is a homosexual, who has been abandoned by his wife. Other people have also been dragged in. Marketing Director has been accused of being the Bull of Nation, as has Finance Director Denis Aluanga, Human Resources director Helen Mbugua. Nearly everyone.

We hold no brief to defend the private behaviours of these men and women. But since NMG is a publicly listed company, and it has played a critical role in Kenya’s democracy, we feel duty bound to defend its public actions and behaviour as an institution, and that of its editors. If Nation, particularly its editors, are discredited, they will not suffer alone. Contrary to what their attackers say, some of them might be able to make up with their wives and husbands and get on with their lives, but the paper will not — and Kenya will be the worse for it.

Another reason is that we have watched with bemused annoyance this campaign of hate and mudslinging for nearly a month now, and been extremely frustrated that these prominent men and women and the company they work for have remained aloof and not issued a response. Perhaps the owners of the company don’t support their editors and managers, in part because they are not Kenyans and don’t live here and therefore don’t feel the pinch.

But we readers and freedom loving Kenyans have done our research and have decided to fight back. We know something about how evil works; it thrives because good men and woman sit back and do nothing.

First, this campaign of hate aimed mainly at the Nation’s leadership, especially its two top editors, has nothing to do with the recent restructuring in which 12 journalists were among over 30 people laid off under, we understand, the orders of Linus who wanted to make Nation a tighter and more efficient ship.

This campaign is about politics, especially the 2007 elections, and according to what our sources inside Nation tell us, some people inside the company who want to settle scores.

There have been some people who have seen a tribal campaign here. No, we don’t think there is tribalism here. It is power.

If one looks again at the list of the people who have been the victims of Jackomafia and the rest, and whose resignation or dismissal Jackomafia is demanding, the effect is that the Nation editorial operation will be seriously undermined. They have picked on the people who are instrumental to the company’s editorial success and sought to discredit and force them out.

But editors like Rhoda or Adyambo are not involved in political sections, and Lucy Oriang only writes one column a week. Why have they been brought in? They have been dragged into the mud for two reasons: One, the people behind the campaign are simple-minded folk who believe that women cannot succeed without sleeping with some man in a company. Secondly, they have also linked up with competitors who see an opportunity to bring these editors (magazines have become an important point of circulation, we are told). But for now, these shall remain unnamed.

This campaign by the tribalists and haters of a free Kenya and strong media, will continue. You have not seen anything yet. Wait until the Alfred Mutuas of this world also get on the bandwagon. But if Nation will not fight back, like it seems to have chosen to do, some of us ordinary Kenyans, will.

POLITICAL AGENDA FictionFirst, the hate letters have claimed that they represent the views of the journalists at Nation.

FactWe have information that the letter writers are no more then six people inside the Nation, and their accomplices outside. There was Crime reporter Steven Muiruri, who, we understand, resigned when he was about to be dismissed for conflict of interest, blackmailing government officers and abusing company resources; Joseph ngure Karanja who was retrench and the occasiobnal help of Patrick Nzioka and Mike mwaniki who are still in the newsroom.

Outside, they are being managed by the former head of CID Joseph Kamau, who lost his job because for habouring the Atur brothers. He has a personal grudge against Nation, which he blames for his downfall, but he is also acting on behalf of a group of politicians in the government with axes to grind with the media group. Among these are Jimmy Wanjigi and Alfie Gitonga, both of whom were involved in the Anglo Leasing transactions.

On the day Muiruri (who by the way is known to have been armed) submitted his resignation, he is known to have gone to the office with a loaded gun. He later had a tearful meeting with Mr Kamau at the Irish Pub at Anniversary Towers after which the disgraced policeman dropped him home.

The Kenya Union of Journalists chairman Eric Orina and his rival Ezekiel Mutua have been co-opted in the campaign, mostly by Kimani. In fact Orina and Gaitho played an important role in disseminating the first email attack.

We have revealed the names, now it is up to NMG management to take action or investigate these claims. More evidence of their dark conspiracies will soon come to the fore.

The Anglo-Leasing scandalThe stories about Wangethi and Odindo are not new. We first read a version of them in the gutter press three years ago, and they have popped up from time to time. But they have never been as wild as this. So why are they being dredged up this time?

The reason is that the first time they appeared, the Nation’s reporting seemed to be against Moi, and those who are mudslinging the paper and their political masters were happy with it.

We have said some of the Jackomafia stuff is not new. It keeps going back to the beginning of the Anglo Leasing scandals just over two years ago. It cannot be mere coincidence, as Muiruri himself reveals in his diatribes, that these two guys — Wangethi and Odindo – now dubbed sex maniacs and bribe-takers, are the ones who traveled to London to meet former anti-corruption czar John Githongo at the end of 2005.

The trip, we all now know, resulted in the definitive exposes of the Anglo Leasing affair, and the famous Kiraitu Murungi and David Mwiraria tapes in which they were pressuring Githongo to lay off the Anglo Leasing investigations.

The emails and stories in the gutter press about Wangethi and Odindo, both known to be among the Githongo’s circle of close friends, increased.

Referedum and death threatsThe Kitengela Ten have also discovered some very disturbing news. Over the last three years, Wangethi, Odindo, Mutuma and other Nation editors have been receiving blackmail and death threats. The year 2005 and 2006, we have established, were particularly bad. However, the threats also started to be made against Lucy Oriang and, we gather, Gitau Warigi.

Both the Orange and Banana sides during the 2005 Referendum accused Nation of bias. Both camps at one point banned Nation reporters from their rallies, and nearly lynched its journalists.

The accusation by the hardliners in government, and the Banana side, was (and continues to be) that Wangethi, as a Kikuyu, had been a “traitor” by not championing the government’s political interest. The Orange campaign on the other hand, labeled him a Kikuyu tribalist who was defending the government.

The reverse accusations happened for Odindo. He was accused by the Orange campaign, particularly the elements from Nyanza, of being a traitor for not supporting them, a “stooge of the Kikuyu”. The tough guys from Central Kenya in the Banana campaign, said Odindo was a “Kikuyu hater,” an ODM agent. We have been told of emails that circulated making the ridiculous claim that Kiboro and Wangethi were beholden to Odindo and therefore they couldn’t stop his pro-ODM bias!

The Adhyambo Odera factorThe Kitengela Ten have yet to find evidence that either Wangethi or Odindo had an affair with this woman with the famous buttocks. Knowledgeable sources say Wangethi hasn’t been to Malindi, where he is alleged to have shacked up with Adhyambo, for over 10 years. Interestingly, Jackomafia who said he would produce the hotel receipts and videos didn’t, as he has failed to produce the incriminating photos of Helen Mbugua and KBC boss David Waweru (or are you still working on your computer-generated images?).

The one thing we can’t explain, however, is that while Adhyambo is Buzz editor, a position she allegedly got after laying Wangethi and Odindo, she has been complaining to anyone who cares to hear, that her salary is much lower than that of many reporters! How is it possible that Wangethi and Odindo could make Adhyambo editor after laying her, and then not give her the salary to go with the job?

Why Linus Gitahi?For simply taking the challenge of leading a politically sensitive company like the Nation, Gitahi has been branded gay and a home-breaker. There is something peculiar among us Kenyans; if you are from a rich or prestigious family, went to an international school, you reach 30 when you are unmarried and have no children, and you don’t defer to the “elders”, you will be called gay or lesbian.

Githongo has endured this, from when he started making noise against corruption in government, and it got nastier after he left. Not surprisingly, Gitahi is being called bi-sexual, because the Kamaus and Muiruris had to somehow explain how come he has a wife and children and has risen fast on the corporate ladder.

When it emerged that Gitahi was to replace Kiboro, our allies tell us that very many people in touch with him. People close to State House, but not State House itself, contacted him. Muriruri has said Police chief Brig. Gen. Ali also rang and, it seems, met him.

Apparently it was at that meeting that Ali told Gitahi that Nation had been very hard on him, and Muiruri who did most of the stories was in the pay of his enemies. Now Muiruri says in his very long post-resignation fighting letter, that Gitahi met Ali and commended the shifty and semi-literate crime editor for a job well done.

Word is that Gitahi took the view that if Ali was complaining about Muiruri, then the young man was doing something wrong. In his anger, Muiruri nows claims that Gitahi was compromised on the very first meeting with Ali! Hasn’t stated in his own letter that Gitahi sent him an sms defending his work (obviously, being only a few days old in the company not knowing the devil he was dealing with).

Part of Gitahi’s problem arises from the fact that because he is from Central province, Nyeri to be precise, it was expected that he would be sympathetic to the government. But because Gitahi also has many friends from western Kenya and Nyanza, among them Mumias CEO Evans Kidero, the expectation was that he would be less hostile to the opposition than Kiboro.

The anger against him seems to derive from the fact that he didn’t protect people like Muiruri, one of the propagandists for the Anglo Leasing mafia, who specialize in planting in the Nation’s pages fictitious stories about Ringera’s war on corruption. So where has that war now reached, Muiruri?

As we said, evil triumphs where good men do nothing. We the Kitengera Ten will continue to update you on the machinations of the enemies of press freedom who have found common cause with Janus-faced journalists at Nation Centre.

Real Gikuyu man answers lonely frustrated beauty who complained to Kumekucha about her lovers of the past.