Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua claims that residents of the Mount Kenya region should unfollow and stop listening to musicians who visited Deputy President Kithure Kindiki last week.
Some of the notable artists who visited the DP include Samidoh Muchoki, Karangu Muraya, Ben Githae, Jose Gatutura, DJ Fatxo, Sammy Irungu, Martin Wajanet, and Ngaruiya Junior, among others.
Speaking in Murang'a on Sunday, May 25, Gachagua claimed that elders from the region have urged the musicians, whom they claim betrayed the community, to either apologise to the people of the region or face repercussions.
Gachagua has further said that entertainment joints should also refrain from inviting musicians to their premises, and if the joints continue inviting them, people should also refrain from going there.
Furthermore, the former DP has said that people should unfollow the musicians on their social media platforms if they fail to apologise.
"The elders agreed that we should stop listening to their songs. And the entertainment joints that used to invite them should stop, and if they do, customers should leave that joint. People should also unfollow their social media platforms," Gachagua said.
According to Gachagua, the artists were paid Ksh50,000 to visit the deputy president at his Karen residence on Friday, March 23.
"They went and were given Ksh50,000. The people they go to entertain are tired of the administration, yet they go and sit down with people who are still frustrating us, and so we should unfollow artists who don't apologise to the community," Gachagua said.
On his hand, the DP, in a statement on his social media account on Saturday, May 24, claimed that the artists had visited him to seek government intervention to weed out cartels in the music ecosystem.
According to Kindiki, the move was also aimed at ensuring that musicians are protected from leaders who compel them, using money, to compose praise and inciteful songs for them.
"Musicians and others in the creative space are seeking government intervention to ensure exploitative cartels are removed and their talent is more rewarding," he stated.
"Leaders who have misused musicians for the composition of personal praise songs or the production of inciteful and divisive music in exchange for small money tokens are bound to be annoyed by this decision," he added.
