Mwanzi1
JF-Expert Member
- Sep 19, 2016
- 6,000
- 4,589
Majirani, chungeni vidole vyenu, uncle Sam is watching.
News that the Kenya Government through the Communications Authority (CA) has invested $5.8 million (Sh600 million) in a social media monitoring system for the upcoming General Elections came as a shock to many citizens who have for the past month witnessed a paralysed health sector as well as acute food shortages in several Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) counties.
It is a shock not just the amount but the philosophy that is behind prioritisation of such purchases and the timing. But let us for once go along and interrogate the necessity of this ‘investment’ as termed by the Director General of the Communication Authority.
The background is the 2007/8 post-election violence that consumed large sections of Coast, Nairobi, Nyanza, Central, Western and Rift Valley counties.
Revisionists have taken a centre-stage to rewrite the post-election violence discourse as a creation of the media and digital technologies and not senior politicians who facilitated the purchase of machetes and fuelled vehicles transporting militia who carried out the attacks.
Opinion: Kenya buys Sh600M social media monitoring tool as people starve
News that the Kenya Government through the Communications Authority (CA) has invested $5.8 million (Sh600 million) in a social media monitoring system for the upcoming General Elections came as a shock to many citizens who have for the past month witnessed a paralysed health sector as well as acute food shortages in several Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) counties.
It is a shock not just the amount but the philosophy that is behind prioritisation of such purchases and the timing. But let us for once go along and interrogate the necessity of this ‘investment’ as termed by the Director General of the Communication Authority.
The background is the 2007/8 post-election violence that consumed large sections of Coast, Nairobi, Nyanza, Central, Western and Rift Valley counties.
Revisionists have taken a centre-stage to rewrite the post-election violence discourse as a creation of the media and digital technologies and not senior politicians who facilitated the purchase of machetes and fuelled vehicles transporting militia who carried out the attacks.
Opinion: Kenya buys Sh600M social media monitoring tool as people starve
