EXPOSED: THE MOTHER OF ALL SEX SCANDALS IN NATION MEDIA GROUP

PART ONE

Preamble We made a promise in January. And we hereby fulfill that promise.

We, a group of patriotic journalists from Nation Media Group, held a meeting in early November and listed the issues that we felt were impacting negatively in the affairs of the Editorial Department.

The first meeting was attended by more than 80 journalists – correspondents and reporters and a few editors sympathetic to our course – and it was resolved that by writing to the in-coming CEO, Mr Linus Gitahi, we would give him an alternative picture from the one he had been given by our managers. We have the support of the majority of journalists on 3rd floor (newspapers) and 6th floor (broadcasting) and staff from other departments. We have been getting very positive feedback from the staff of all cadres – including senior managers – through the anonymous yahoo emails we have been using to send the stuff..

And contrary to the thoughts of Linus and the sex-for-promotion managers and editors, these emails are the brainchild of journalists in 3rd floor and we don’t work with outsiders. The stuff is prepared and served to your dinning table from right here.

All the bureaus were well represented and the secret meeting appointed a committee of experienced journalists to spearhead the process of updating Linus on what had gone wrong in the Editorial. The minutes and the list of all the journalists who attended and their ID Numbers are available. We deposited the documents with our advocate so that what we agreed on is binding to all of us.

All those who attended took an oath not to betray their colleagues or the course. We are happy that we have remained together despite various attempts by the Security Manager, Mr Sam Koskei, and the NMG leadership to send moles to spy on us. So far so good. No one has become a traitor.

We are happy that our mission has been a success despite efforts by Koskei to monitor the phones and computers and plant moles in the newsroom to find out who have been writing these mails. Owino Opondo and Mugo Njeru should just give up. Koskei and Linus should have been a little bit smarter.

We wrote two letters to Linus in December since we did not trust the leadership of the Editorial Department – the Group Editorial Director, Mr Wangethi Mwangi, and Mr Joseph Odindo, would give Linus the correct picture since the two were solely to blame for the mess and decay in this crucial department. We thought that Linus was a major departure from the past and he would clean up the mess that his predecessor decided to live with. We thought that since Linus was a young and energetic man, he would be in a better position to understand the issues and clean up the mess. Wilfred Kiboro was so close to his managers, eg Wangethi Mwangi, and Dennis Aluanga, and he did not bother to act even when some of the men whose wives had been taken over by the sex-hungry managers wrote letters to complain and presented him with evidence. He argued that sex affairs were personal decisions and they had nothing to do with NMG.

The Editorial Dept is the heart and engine of NMG, and this is the plain reality in any media house all over the world. So, if all was not well in this Dept, the stench is bound to resonate and be reflected in all the other departments. The Editorial Dept is the moral conscience of NMG, the largest media house in East and Central African region. What we write reflects the views and aspirations of the entire group, the views of the founder, His Highness the Aga Khan, and the shareholders.

However, morals in this department have decayed under the watchful eye of Wangethi and Odindo and we highly doubt that the Aga Khan would be part of it. The department has lost its glory due to chronic corruption, sex scandals and manipulation of NMG’s independent editorial policy by outsiders. The two senior editors belong to a small clique of managers who have turned Nation Centre into a brothel and they have turned other people’s wives into their own mistresses or concubines. We will demonstrate later.

We understand that when the first letters landed on Linus desk, he promptly called Wangethi and Odindo and demanded an explanation from them. As anyone would expect, they denied. But what was shocking to us, Linus took their word as the gospel truth and the matter was buried there and then. He did not even institute independent investigations to the serious issues we had raised in our letters.

We went back to the drawing board in January and the meeting resolved that we should use all the means at our disposal to make Linus see some sense in what we were saying. Before Linus took over at Nation Centre, the HR Dept had issued Climate Survey forms which all journalists were to highlight the problems that faced the Editorial and how to solve them. We said everything in the forms. Soon after he reported to Nation, Linus told us he had gone through the issues we had raised in the forms and he would act on them. Our letters had raised the same issues and more importantly raised serious concerns about moral decadence in the Editorial Dept. And we named the Editors and managers who preyed on other people’s wives or those who were involved in the sex-for-promotion-or-hire scandals.

After being convinced (or out of fearing the managers he found at NMG and who are much older than him), Linus decided he would not act on either the letters we had sent him or the views in the Climate Survey forms. According to him, the letters were anonymous and the journalists who filled the forms did not append their names. He simply said he does not respond to anonymous letters!

When we met again in January, we resolved to take our campaigns much higher. We decided to use the only weapon we had at our disposal – the pen. We decided that since Lunus had blocked his ears, we should expose the rot in NMG to the outside world. And that is what we are doing today. We resolved to use the internet to tell the world what goes on in Nation Centre.

First, we wrote to Linus and we gave all the top editors and managers of Nation Media Group, who have been involved in a string of sex scandals an ultimatum of up to February 28 to resign. But they opted to stay put. The ultimatum lapsed yesterday and none of them has shown any willingness to throw in the towel.

We believe the top executives who have embarrassed the journalism profession are well known and they also know themselves. It’s pay back time and we now lift the lid to shame them.

We, journalists, are viewed by the public as the watchdog of the society. It’s our business to expose and criticize political leaders implicated in all manner of malpractices. Be it corruption, sex scandals, political turn coats; name it.

We do so while standing on a moral high ground. However, we can’t be taken seriously by the public unless we first clean the skeletons in our cupboards and demonstrate by actions and deeds that we stand by the values NMG stand for and what we give out to our readers every day. We have taken this initiative on own after the new leadership under Lunus closed all avenues of dialogue and reasoning and failing to take action against managers who have brought disrepute to NMG. You have the evidence Linus but you don’t want to act. The time for sacred cows is gone.

It’s now our turn to use the same weapon we have been using against other people. We will turn the spotlight on the managers of Nation Media Group, which prides itself as the mirror of the society and the second gospel after the Bible and the Koran.

We will from today begin to unveil the dark secrets the walls of Nation Centre have concealed for years. We will, without bias and prejudice, expose the editors who oversee the editorial matters of NMG and the public will for the first time know the stinking rot that is within Nation Centre.

What you are about to read is only a tip of the iceberg. More shocking news will be coming your way later in the month. In an attempt to buy our silence, Linus has been busy organizing retreats for us in Limuru in the false believe that the move will cool off the heat. That is escaping from the reality.

Instead of taking a decisive action, Linus has engaged in a merry-go-round sort of administration in the hope that he will buy time and we will give up. We will never give up. The noise will become even more louder, the more he continues to display his contempt to 3rd floor and we are the people who toil like slaves to pay his Sh2.5 million plus salary every month. Isn’t it immoral for him to earn that kind of money while we are languishing in abject poverty?

In exposing our bosses, we are ready and prepared to bite the bullet and put our jobs on the line for the sake of redeeming the image of the Editorial Department and the entire media house. We believe His Highness the Aga Khan did not built Nation Centre with holy funds so that senior managers can turn it into a brothel. How we wish carpets and walls of Nation Centre can talk!

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