JACKAL NEWS – Standard Digital Online Editor David Ohito has done what experienced journalists should not do. On a the article Miguna’s Book Spills Raila Secrets, the journalist claims that he had seen excerpts from the book, Peeling Back The Mask: A Quest For the Justice In Kenya:  

The truth is that the passage he is quoting was first published by the Jackal News and Dennis Itumbi.com on May 25, 2012 after the two websites exclusively landed on a press release by the publishers Gilgamesh Publishing Limited. Many other portals carried the story on that day, so it is impossible for him to claim that they were released this month.   On that day, the two websites quoted the press release of what Prime Minister Raila Odinga allegedly said during a political standoff spurred by the post-elections violence that killed at least 1,500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands:   “Eeeeh…eehhhh. .eiiii…Please save me from Kibaki! Eeeeeh..eiiiii…Please don’t let me go back to that man…I don’t want to go back to Kibaki! Eeeeh…eiii… Please save me from Kibaki!” Raila broke down and cried torrents of tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He was shaking uncontrollably.It was about 3:30pm on April 6, 2008. Everyone in the room was stunned. They had never seen Raila cry before.

We looked at each other, unable to move. No one was prepared for this heart-wrenching scene. I guess we had assumed that Raila was‘superhuman’. He had a larger-than-life image in the consciousness of Kenyans…But there he was, someone we all held in awe, wailing uncontrollably in front of everyone…Raila had just returned from a face-to-face meeting with Kibaki over the formation of the grand coalition government following the signing of the national accord and reconciliation agreement on February 28, 2008.   By then he had attended numerous meetings and most had ended in stalemate or Raila’s capitulation. Raila’s debriefs…had become a routine in itself, with him repeating “Kibaki can’t accept this”or “Kibaki is insisting on that”.Raila was not only crying; he was also sweating profusely.” Instead of saying that the excerpts are old, he writes in on Thursday: The 500 page book has just released some of the excerpts ahead of next week’s launch. Here are the excerpts.

Next time, maybe it would be fair in David Ohito checks the facts and tells them as they are. But it is not right to give misleading information that the information has just been “released” yet it is old.

The Jackal News