By Shem Mandela
There has been clearly no love lost between Nyamira County leaders and journalists based in the County.
Whereas both parties are key stakeholders in leadership, their incessant squabbles and public display of disaffection has not been lost on the eyes of the public.
The differences have hit an all-time high bordering on the brink of exploding like a time bomb.
In one of the leading Dailies in Kenya, a well-known journalist alleged that a section of the County Assembly leadership had threatened to bar the media from covering the Assembly plenary sessions and other functions unless they changed their approach of covering such events.
Though the reporter did not indicate the venue or occasion at which the said threats were issued, the claims were a clear indication that all was not well.
These claims emerged soon after an abortive open forum held in the County by a leading media house in which fracas erupted prompting the organizers to temporarily disconnect the county dialogue that was being aired live across the world.
The moderator of the dialogue was accused of open bias and keen on inciting the public against their leaders.
In particular some members of the public accused him of being disrespectful for holding the microphone for the leaders to respond to questions that he was raising.
He was further accused of limiting the leaders from explaining matters comprehensively by asking them “Yes” or “No” questions.
It later emerged that there were some divisions in the County Assembly that have had a section of the journalists caught up in the middle.
One of the factions is allied to the Assembly Speaker and the other to a former Deputy Speaker. The former is accused of being mean whereas the latter is said to be generous.
A journalist who spoke to this writer in confidence disclosed that a section of the Fourth Estate fraternity has been all along quietly unhappy with the Speaker because of what he cited as limited access.
He claimed that the Speaker had not invited the journalists formally despite having promised to host them for a dinner which has never been.
“All we want is recognition as watchdogs of the people. Unless that happens, we will not write anything positive about Nyamira County Executive or the Assembly,” he stated categorically.
One of the most used projects in the onslaught against the Assembly has been an ambitious ultra-modern Office Block being put up at a cost of Ksh. 367 million.
Currently, only a section of Executive Committee Members and some MCAs receive “favourable” coverage. The Governor has equally been on the receiving end.
Usually, it's quite ordinary to have scribes receive what they refer as 'freebie' before or after covering functions that feature leaders and this could be the genesis of the battle between the two stakeholders at the county level.