Month: April 2013

For the uninitiated, when someone threatens to sue you -this has happened to me before till i’m now an expert- they first talk alot on social media. Not everyone does this first step. Those that do this first step are simply chirping. Ignore the birds.

When it’s a serious person, they first go down to their lawyers office. They then consult their lawyer and tell them their grievances. The lawyer then drafts a demand letter and has their clerk send it over to your office.

Once this is done, you have a finite number of hours to respond to the demands or consult your legal team. If you feel that the demands are outrageous, your lawyer buckles down and gets ready for a legal battle. That is usually where you begin to take stock of your financial resources. You gather them round you and kiss each of them goodbye. Then you move to court and wait 30 years for Kenya’s judicial wheels to get to you.

Controversial blogger and serial truth teller Dennis Itumbi has decided to take legal action against the NCIC for allegations they made against him about hate speech. Being a hate speech mongerer is a rather serious tag. Serious enough to warrant Dennis Itumbi to seek legal redress. Read about the allegations levelled by the NCIC here.

Below is the demand letter Dennis Itumbi sent the NCIC:

 

“We refer to the above matter and your letter dated 1th March 2012 notifying our client Dennis Itumbi of a complaint lodged with you by undisclosed complainant whom you conveniently referred to as “a concern Kenyan (sic)”.

Whereas our client maintains innocence in respect of any allegation of hate speech on facebook or at all and shall shortly make an application to strike out the complaint for being frivolous, vexatious and lacking in substance, he has instructed us to demand from you, which we hereby do to furnish us with the following further particulars of the complaint

a) Itemized verbatim facebook posts subject of the complaint and your investigation;

b) The nature of threats in such posts;
c)The alleged communities, class or group of persons in Kenya which said posts intended to cause hatred and violence among;
d) The identity of tl1e complainant;
e)Any further particulars that would enable our client to comprehend the nature and extent or the allegations against him.

Furnished with the requested our client is ready and willing to assist the commission in any lawful investigation.”

 

The whole of last month i’ve been trying to get you to save a lot of money that you can then spend on buying yourself a drink at The Mingle. The thing is though that the offer for the Early Bird tickets expired…

But the folk over at The Mingle decided to give you more time to get the early bird tickets which cost a mere 600/-. And seeing as t’s end month, you should probably spend some of that paycheck you were enjoying over Easter on these tickets.

This offer is only for a week so don’t dull! Mek you get you some! The tickets are available from any Steers branch and from ticketsasa.com. You will save a total of 900 shillings so you don’t have an excuse not to be at The Mingle this time round. Read more about the Mingle and what to expect from here.

Good morning April, and a good morning to all of you! Fatigue aside, y’all were pretty pissed by some of the April fools pranks that my fellow team members pulled yesterday. Oh well. This morning these are the ten things you should know about:

1. Nvdity is clearly a big deal in these streets and this somehwta nvde pic of Pendo drew quite the response. Here. 

2. Hot in the heels of that was Julie Gichuru’s appaerent move to K24. Here.

3. Not to be left behind was the story of Rick Ross gracing the inauguration bash. More here.

4. Getrude Mungai it is rumoured filed for divorce. 

 

5. Is Jaguar actually getting appointed a minister? 

6. Marya preggers? Read that here. 

7. Raila and Uhuru supposedly hit the studio together. Thing is, can these two sing? here. 

8. More Alai ‘controversy’ here. ? 

9. Then there’s that shocker that we could be heading to K24.  

10. Dennis Itumbi picked as government spokesman? More here.  

So yesterday was April fools and Baba Ghafla and i pulled a couple fast ones on you. But na joke tings. So stop sending me angry emails and facebook messages. This na joke tings. But away from the people who have the sense of humour of a cadaver and on to those that knew to take the jokes with a light touch. Allow me to clarify which stories were half truths and which were outright lies.

Outright Lies

#1. Getrude Mungai getting divorced. That was straight B.S. I actually hope nothing but the best for their union. I love that she is liberal and willing to experiment with sex. Kenyan girls half her age still go for the dead cockroach style… Bleurgh!

#2. Marya 7 months pregnant. Uhm… Yeah, that was a lie i pulled out of my gluteus maximus. And no, that is not a Roman emporer.

#3. Jaguar’s government appointment. Do i look like i have president elect’s ear on such matters? Really? Read up on civic matters and find out just why this was an outright lie.

#4. Julie Gichuru joining K24. She has reiterated that she will still be at Citizen for quite some time to come.

#5. Robert Alai getting arrested. I don’t know where the chap spent hisEaster but i do know it wasn’t from behind bars. And Kenya has not gone back to the Nyayo torture chambers days of Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi. Last i checked, the constitution protected Freedom of Speech. So we can look forward to more tweets about Kileleshwa residents being raped and otherwise terrorised a and more Chimwami sex scandals.

#6. Raila and Uhuru working on a peace song. Unless the funny lot at XYZ are behind that, i wouldn’t hold my breathe.

#7. Dennis Itumbi being primed to become the government spokesman. Yeah… Thing is… That slot was already filled.

Half Truths

#1. Ghafla being bought out…

#2. TNA bringing Rick Ross to Kenya. Uhm… I’m not responsible for starting these rumours and they’ve been circulating for over two weeks now. Time will tell though.

I hope to God that Jesus Christ’s return shan’t fall on April Fools because alot of you doubting Thomases shan’t get to enter the gates thinking it’s a joke! But enough about you doubting Thomasesand what you had for breakfast. Back to work tings! And this is merely an opinion piece. But you have to admit that the speed at which Dennis Itumbi has been receiving news about both Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto is shocking!

Last week, Jeff Omondi and I had a rather stimulating convo on whether or not Dennis Itumbi is being primed to take over the Government Spokesman position which proved to be a tricky slot for the last lad who held the office: Afred Mutua. Thing is, if you follow Dennis Itumbi on twitter or if you are his friend on Facebook, you will have noticed that he has been breaking news more accurately than most media houses around and he has been doing it alot faster.

Actually, i suspect that their new strategy is to sneak a peek at his social media statements then once they have a hint, they spin it and run with it. That’s how much confidence i have in what the chap puts out on social media.

Time will tell whether my suspicions are correct or not but i suspect that we already know who the next Government Spokesman will be.

Happy April Fools day though.

We all saw K24 buy up Citizen’s top-rated news anchor in a gutting spree that has left many viewing what has transpired to be media wars. Well, their buying spree is far from over!

Late Thursday night, none other than Baba Ghafla himself received a phone call from K24’s top brass in what turned out to be the early stages of negotiations to buy out or atleast absorb Ghafla into the K24 family.

While it’s still to early to discuss concrete terms, what was discussed was the fate of the employees, the direction K24 would like to steer Ghafla in and ofcourse, the monetary considerations for the brand. Thing is, i doubt these negotiations will go far seeing as they offered the same amount offered by NMG last year -50million Kenya shillings and after talking to Baba Ghafla who then had a conference call with the investors over at 88 MPH, Baba Ghafla turned down the offer citing the initial price as being too low.

Let’s wait and see whether Africa’s Mark Zuckerberg will get the fairy tale story, university drop out turned entrepreneur turned billionaire. That’s right, forget the -M- put a -B- there! Happy April Fools day though.

Just last week, i was one of the Kenyans who toasted to what seemed to be Robert Alai’s small victory upon his prompting president elect Uhuru Kenyatta’s apology on some disparaging remarks made about the bench of judges hearing the election petition. But all that seems to have faded faster than your girlfriend’s make up after a night out!

Robert Alai was last night re-arrested at about 10pm and he spent the night in prison. No charges were proffered against him and his family members were still trying to track him down by the time this story was being written. The controversial blogger was bundled from his house into a waiting police van by plain clothes police who then drove him away.

We await further information on the same with bated breathe but given everyone this brave soul has rubbed the wrong way, we highly doubt that their will be a shortage of charges for him to plead against. Keep it Ghafla as we keep you posted.

Happy April Fools day though.

If you thought it was a joke, then Uncle Chim Tuna is here to dispel any fears you may have had.

Rick Ross has confirmed that he will be performing at TNA’s celebratory party. The party will be to celebrate Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto’s victory in the just concluded general election. While Chris Brown is yet to confirm -he had some outrageous demands for his more than 50 people strong entourage- Rick Ross, the hottest name in hiphop for a minute now has confirmed.

Our sources at TNA say that they are still trying to get a confirmation from a host of other celebrities but Ricky Rozay’s confirmation is a big win. They are now confident that they will get the signatures of the rest of the musicians they had initially sought after. Keep it Ghafla because once they can get a confirmation video, they will email it to us and we will exclusively carry the video!

Happy April Fools day though.