Allow Moses Kuria to represent his people in peace
What you need to know:
- Kwamchetsi Makokha’s sideways look at the Gatundu South MP.
Within the space of a week, Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria has stormed out of a live television interview and asked a court to bar the media from an ongoing criminal case against him.
Until the Kenyan media came along, Mr Kuria was doing just fine on his own. He has five active Facebook pages with a combined friendship of 775, and a total 75,000 likes. Obviously, the man is selling like hot cakes.
The crown jewel of his media assets is ‘Moses Kuria: Public Figure’, which has 36,000 likes and 426 friends.
Mr Kuria’s thoughts, ideas and words are continuously being lapped up by thousands of intellectually starved followers, turning the administrators at Facebook green with envy.
Last year, they shut down one of his accounts for no reason at all, forcing him to hit back with a perfect comeback: “After shutting Hon. Moses Kuria(‘s) personal (F)acebook account, his supporters and well wishers have started this page to support him saying ‘Bring Back Moses Kuria’. Those Facebook fogeys could not stomach the page for a day, forcing it to disappear into cyberspace.
Before that, Mr Kuria had made a name for himself on Facebook calling out people he believed were responsible for terrorist activities, hence the complaint by the Law Society of Kenya resulting in the case against him. For good measure, he claimed in a posting on one of his Facebook pages on June 15, 2014: “The terrorist attack in Mpeketoni and the burning of a hotel is enough reason to place Raila Odinga under house arrest.”
He had a tinge of apology in his September 2, 2014 posting on former President Daniel arap Moi’s birthday: “Though I fought you in my youthful years, (yo)u were right to castrate a certain traitor thus limiting his evil offspring. Long live Moi.”
Earlier in the year, Mr Kuria had also apologised for linking a whole community to terrorism as part of an attempt to end the hate speech criminal prosecution against him. No sooner had the apology been issued than another posting appeared on Mr Kuria’s Facebook page quoting Genesis 17.14.
Despite the furore, Mr Kuria did not flinch. This is the kind of courage that is required of a leader. It is by dint of his popularity on social media — evident in the 429 followers @HonMosesKuria has on Twitter — that he was elected unopposed in the National Assembly.
CRITICAL CONSTITUENCY
It is an unmatched distinction at the national level largely because Mr Kuria has a critical constituency of one person: President Uhuru Kenyatta. It is Mr Kuria who delivers Sh200,000 and 30 tickets to Gor Mahia so they could fly to their game in Tanzania. It is to him that the confirmation of the secretary to the Cabinet nominee — Dr Monica Juma — was entrusted when her name was presented to the National Assembly for vetting.
The ponderous responsibilities devolving upon Mr Kuria’s shoulders by virtue of representing the President weigh heavily on him and attract unspeakable unwanted attention from the media in the hope that they can plug their dwindling newspaper circulation and plummeting television viewership.
Media excuses about holding leaders to account would apply to the Gatundu South MP. As it were, the closest he came to contact with voter decision-making was when The National Alliance membership nominated him to vie for the seat following the death of Jossy Ngugi Ngumu. All his opponents withdrew from the race, making the election unnecessary.
Most recently, Mr Kuria has been heard claiming ownership of a certain militia and advising them to deploy machetes to other uses besides cutting grass in defending National Youth Service projects. A person of his wild popularity and intelligence does not need to be told how to represent his constituency, least of all by a media.
