Standard newspaper and KTN Raids: The Inside Story

"Even During Moi And Kenyatta's Darkest Hours, This Never Happened..."


As Kenyans and the world are still reeling with shock over the incident this week where masked policemen armed with automatic weapons raided the oldest newspaper in Kenya, more questions than answers are emerging from this strange event that is unprecedented in Kenyan history.

I will not waste your time nor mine with long philosophical analysis littered with the words, “possibilities” “probable” etc. Instead I will get straight to the point with the raw information I have gathered so far. I have put all in a simple Q&A format. I focused my research to answer the questions everybody is asking. Questions in bold headlines, the answer I unearthed in text format.


Who Ordered Raid?

The whole operation to invade the Standard group was hatched by Internal Security Minister John Michuki (of the now famous rattle snake comment), CID Director Joseph Kamau and President Kibaki’s special advisor (on political strategy) Stanley Murage.

Intensive research by the Standard Newspaper itself which no doubt benefited greatly from volunteered information from the sympathetic public goes further and puts the the three in Michuki’s office along Harambee House, hours before the operation, supposedly fine-tuning everything.

Why Was Standard Newspapers Raid Carried Out?

Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka: This man's bid for the Presidency has put him at the centre of all the trouble.

To answer this question, we will need to ask and answer many other smaller questions, so here goes.

There is little doubt that the arrest of the 3 Standard Newspaper journalists for the Kalonzo story, and the attacks at Standard and KTN are linked.

The government is saying that the raid was carried out to counter a plan by the newspaper to do something that touched on “national security”.

In answering our question here, the first small question we need to ask and answer is “who owns the Standard Group.” The answer is people allied very closely to former President Moi. (Remember all the controversy when the newspaper changed ownership during the Moi era?

The arrest of the 3 journalists was because of a story that said that Kalonzo had secretly met with President Kibaki. Kalonzo Musyoka, a presidential hopeful is on record as having said that the rumour was leaked to the press to “mess him up” and that he knows the people who did it by name.

There are only two possible suspects who would have wanted to leak the story to the press. It could be a section of Kanu allied to former President Moi who are keen on the ODM breaking up. Or it could be Musyoka’s colleagues within LDP.

Musyoka has implying that it is the latter, the evidence on the ground implies that it is the former. I suspect that both answers are correct in that the two groups have joined hands to achieve a common goal they have. We already know that a section of Kanu are working with LDP within ODM.

The ODM is full of people whom the government deems dangerous. Dangerous enough to be a threat to national security.

The raids were carried out to send a clear message to this group, that the government side is now prepared to play “dirty” and that they are fully aware of what is going on.

Isn’t it strange that it is the Nation newspaper that breaks the Anglo Leasing scandal, a story that many are predicting will bring down the Kibaki administration, but then all the government attention ends up being focused on the (lower influence and lower circulation) Standard newspapers instead?

Presidential press unit head, Isaiah Kabira, in a meeting with one of the journalists who was arrested, two days before the story was published is quoted as having asked the journalist why the Standard newspaper was against the government.

So what is the threat on national security that Michuki and company were dealing with when they carried out such a barbaric move on the oldest newspaper in Kenya? Was the newspaper about to break another big story? Is this whole circus designed to pre-empt the breaking of such a story? Difficult to say but one thing is for certain, when you start asking such questions you are very close to the truth in this matter.

What Does it All Mean?
It means that the high-stakes-no-holds-barred battle for political power through the upcoming general elections is in full swing. But I strongly believe that the voters of Kenya have a nasty surprise up their sleeve for all these wheeler-dealers. Firstly the rules have changed, what worked in 2002 will not work this time. Secondly the Kenyan voters are getting angrier by the day. They’ll be very angry by the time they’re casting their votes. Angry voters can do strange things. Ask the older Bush how he lost to Clinton. Watch this blog for more details on this in later posts.