NTV news anchors Larry Madowo and Ken Mijungu on Thursday morning narrated how they were tipped off by security apparatus that plainclothes officers were seeking to arrest them.
Speaking in an interview with Reuters, the two journalists explained how they received warnings by sources allied to the police who had been ordered to arrest them.
Mijungu stated that he was unapologetic after NTV Kenya was shut down by the government for the live coverage of NASA Principal Raila Odinga’s swearing-in.
“We were doing our job, we had the right to do this, and if I was to do it again, I’d do it the same way,” Mijungu stated.
[caption caption="NTV senior anchor and reporter Ken Mijungu"]
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The senior anchors stated that they spent the night conferring with lawyers waiting for police to appear with arrest warrants.
Madowo ,who also spent the night in NTV newsroom, noted that their head of security had reason to believe the police had gone for reinforcements.
He further compared the shutdown by the government with other African countries whose media has been muzzled to curtail its independence.
“This is clearly a slide to dictatorship. It’s a return to a repressive period we had forgotten about. We are becoming another African country with these kinds of issues,” Madowo stated.
NTV Managing Editor, Linus Kaikai, who is also a wanted man, had earlier on revealed that government had warned the media against covering the opposition’s event.
[caption caption="NTV anchor Larry Madowo"]
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During a press briefing, Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang‘i accused media organizations of facilitating the “illegal act”, which he claimed put the lives of thousands of Kenyans at risk.
