Days before the oath ceremony that was set to take place in the country’s capital city Nairobi, President Uhuru Kenyatta and other executive staff were reported to have summoned media managers and “threatened to shut their stations down and revoke their licenses” if they proceeded with the broadcast, which the government felt was a threat to national security. All the major TV channels ignored this directive and went ahead with the live broadcast. What followed was the switching off of the transmission signals of four privately owned media outlets: NTV, KTN, Citizen TV, its sister station, Inooro TV. Three journalists at NTV — Linus Kaikai, Larry Madowo and Ken Mijungu — told Reuters that security agency sources warned them they’d be arrested, and that plainclothes officers came to their office and hovered outside the entrance, threatening to arrest them if they tried to exit the building.
The Kenya Media Council condemned the network suspensions and muzzling of the press by the government, calling the situation “the greatest threat and assault on freedom of expression.” On February 1, Kenya’s High Court suspended the shutdown of the affected stations. The government defied the court order for a week, until it finally switched NTV and KTN News back on after seven days, and Citizen TV and Inooro TV after ten days, on 8 February. Kenyans had their views to air ,some were for it ,
Honestly I think #MediaShutDownKE should continue. There’s less political debates in households. Less gambling ads, less irritating political analysts, less drama.
People are talking to each other more.
— Ahmed Mohamed ((ASMALi)) (@Asmali77) February 1, 2018
Some strongly against it,
More shocking are the people loudly supporting the government move to shut down the media.A government that has the audacity to shut down media in 2018 is a dangerous government.They have crossed the red line and anything for them,going forward, will be fair game #MediaShutDownKE pic.twitter.com/bL8IJm6T4m
— Boniface Mwangi (@bonifacemwangi) February 2, 2018
and some were in the middle ground .
One thing I love about Kenya is when something happens its affects all of us. the Media shut down affected all both jubilee and NASA supporters . That’s is how hunger will do with Us Kenyan. #MediaShutDownKE#JamboKenya
— Eng. Machio malingu (@eng_machio) February 6, 2018
The illusion of an independent Kenyan media that is free from state interference evaporated.