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Drama galore while working at the News Desk

In the 1990s, I was News Editor of the weekly Peoplenewspaper which is today a daily.
The multi-party political system had just come to Kenya and the People weekly was among the four media outlets identified as the alternative press. The other three were magazines: Society, Finance and Nairobi Law Monthly.
The alternative press was known for boldness as it could publish what the hitherto existing media could never touch those days.
For venturing where eagles dare, the alternative press had to live with constant harassment by State functionaries, including arrest and prosecution of journalists, confiscation of publications, and dismantling of printing presses.
Somehow the People weekly was spared much of the harassment.
MATIBA
Either authorities feared the principal investor in the publication, politician Kenneth Matiba, or they felt guilty they had punished him enough after he suffered from a stroke while in political detention for his role in the clamour for a multi-party political system.
As the founding News Editor of the People weekly, my bigger headache was not the government of the day but opposition politicians.
Believing it was their newspaper, and on the mistaken belief we could publish anything as long as it was anti-government, opposition politicians would troop to my desk with all manner of trash and demand that it be published.
COCK-AND-BULL STORY
I remember one morning when a senior official of Mr Matiba’s Ford Asili party came to me with some cock-and-bull story which he not only had the audacity to demand that we splash it, but with a headline he had in mind. I put my foot down that we could only publish his tale if he produced tangible evidence to back it.
“What do you mean by tangible evidence?” he barked at me.
“Who doesn’t know the Kanu government is headed by murderers and thieves!”
I told him that could be true but for every single allegation made, the newspaper must have some proof before going to the press.
Hot under the collar, the loud-mouthed fellah threatened: “Look here, young man, this is our newspaper. It’s us to tell you what to publish, not the other way round!”
Before I figured what to tell him, he picked up his bags and walked out on me with a parting shot: “I am going to raise this matter with our chairman (Mr Matiba). You can start looking for another job.” 
He reported me to one of our directors, Mr David Kabeberi. Fortunately, he told off the bully busy-body.
DAY I DECLINED FREE LAND
Some of the more memorable incidents I remember of my days at the News Desk is a conversation I had with assistant minister and Mombasa Kanu supremo Shariff Nassir.
We had carried a story on land grabbing in Mombasa where he topped the list of culprits.
The day the story appeared, he called the News Desk early in the morning.
From his pronouncements during the one-party Kanu rule, I expected him to breathe fire.
Surprisingly, he was very polite and throughout the conversation referred to me as mwanangu (my son).
“What is the problem if Shariff Nassir is allocated some land?” he asked me.
“The problem is that the plots you have been allocated had been set aside for public utilities, not for allocation to individuals,” I replied.
“But Shariff Nassir is a member of the public. What is wrong if a member of the public is allocated public land?” he reasoned.
“The problem is that you’re not going to put up a public facility on the plot.”
He made a loud laugh and said: “That’s where you go wrong, you journalists. If I put up a petrol station or a supermarket on the plot, are those not public utilities? It’s not just Shariff Nassir’s cars that will fuel there, and, if a supermarket, it’s not just my wife who will go shopping there!”
Can you beat such reasoning!
And the politician wasn’t done with me yet.
“By the way, my son, I will organise that you be allocated a plot in Mombasa”, he said, citing the stereotype that people from where I come from have an insatiable appetite for land.
“There’s no worthy Kikuyu without land at the coast. Even your employer (Mr Matiba) has vast tracts of land in the South Coast,” he told me.
I replied that I would be very happy to be allocated land as long as it was not land set aside for public use.
He made another laughter and told me to think about it and go to see him if I wanted land in Mombasa. I never did.
SON OF THE PRESIDENT? NOT ME!
Another incident I remember had to do with Mr Jonathan Toroitich, the eldest son of former President Daniel arap Moi.
Toroitich is a retired rally car driver.
While in practice sometimes in the 1990s, one of Toroitich’s crew vehicles collided with one carrying Mr Gacuru Karenge, who was an MP from Murang’a.
They reached an out-of-court settlement but a disagreement arose and the MP threatened to go to court.
We carried a story headlined: “MP threatens to sue Moi’s son.”
A few days later, I got a call from Mr Toroitich.
His main beef wasn’t the contents of the story but the reference to him as Moi’s son.
“Must you identify me by my father’s name? What has my father got to do with the road accident?” he fumed.
I explained to him that the use of his father’s name was by no means meant to impute his father had any role in the accident but just a short and easier way of identifying him.
He wasn’t convinced and said he would send a written rejoinder to the story we had published.
Within an hour the rejoinder was at my desk. It was creatively written. The address on the envelope was: “Mr Kamau, the son of Ngotho.”
And throughout his write-up, he referred to the MP as “Hon Gacuru, the son of Karenge”.
He ended with a caution: “Next time you write about me, please be informed my name is Jonathan Toroitich, period!”
ARROGANT SCHOOL PRINCIPAL
Yet another morning, some elders came to my desk to give me a story about an altercation they had with a headmistress (that was before we started calling them principals) of a famous girls high school in Nairobi.
The headmistress was rumoured to be the mistress of a top politician and was feared by all and sundry.
The quarrel with the elders who came to see me had to do with land and they had taken the matter to court. They told me that when their lawyer went to serve the untouchable headmistress with court summons, she threw them back and bragged: “You can go to any court you like. I have the law between my legs!”
I thought the elders were exaggerating to pepper the story, so I called the headmistress on her direct line which they gave me.
The lioness was so offended the media had called on her direct line: “Who gave you my direct line? And who told you I talk to the press!” she roared. “What is it you’re disturbing me about?”
I calmly told her about the land dispute and asked her if it was true she had thrown away the court sermons and uttered the alleged words.
“So what if I threw back the summons and said whatever I did?” she asked, and banged the phone. And you say there is impunity in Kenya these days!
SECOND “CUT”
Yet on another day, I got a dossier on how a State House functionary had looted a State corporation.
I called State House using the general line listed in the telephone directory and asked to talk to him. He wasn’t readily available but he called back hours later. First, he was mad I had called State House.
“Who gave you permission to call this place?” he demanded.
I was prepared for an ugly exchange and shot back: “State House is a public office and I don’t need permission to call any public office in the republic!”
“I can see Matiba (the newspaper owner) has made you grow horns! We will see how far you’ll go”, he threatened and asked what I wanted.
I told him about the scandal and told him I had the documents to prove it.
I could hear him hissing with anger as he warned: “Are you circumcised? I dare you to publish that rubbish and I will “cut” you for the second time!”
We published the story with a paragraph that he had threatened to “cut” me again, whatever he meant by that. I waited for the “cut” but it never came.
***
And, of course, there were humorous moments like the day former Attorney-General Charles Njonjo telephoned to comment on a story we had written.
First he complained the story wasn’t written in “proper” English.
“I hear you, Sir”, I told him and requested that I hand him over to a reporter who could take his comments and write a story.
When I told him the name of the reporter to take the story, he firmly objected on the reasoning that the name of the reporter sounded like he couldn’t speak “good” English.
“I will only talk to you and nobody else. At least, your English sounds okay”, he insisted.
And, of course, I can’t forget a foreign diplomat who officially identified himself as the press attaché at his embassy but whom I always suspected to be a spy for his country, given the kind of information he would ask for, but more for the privileged information he had.
He let the cat out of the bag one day in an unguarded moment when he told me he had overheard a top politician on the phone. I asked him, how? His reply: “You know the technology you have is either supplied by us or our allies. We can always listen into a conversation whenever we wish.”
Wow, talk of the big brother watching over you!
kamngotho@yahoo.comShariff Nassir

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