A section of Jubilee Party leaders, on Saturday, November 9, went all out against a cover story by the Daily Nation that they claimed was borderline embarrassing.
In the article titled "Ruto Locks Out Kibra Team in Polls Loss Fury", the paper claimed that Deputy President William had canceled a planned meeting after getting disappointed by the results of the Kibra polls.
Taking to social media, majority leaders Kipchumba Murkomen (National Assembly) and Aden Duale (Senate) together with Jubilee digital strategist, Dennis Itumbi, dismissed the report as fake news blasting the paper as turning into a gutter press.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, Duale firmly stated, "No meeting of that kind took place as the DP was in Meru yesterday. The media house must leave to their ethical values of being factual and truthful."
"For many years the Nation was considered a leader in pursuit of truth and for balanced and objective reporting. This was partly because of its foreign ownership. Of late it has degenerated so fast towards the gutter press. What happened? Did the Aga Khan sell their shares to partisan players?" Murkomen asserted.
"Gutter and desperate journalism. Fiction and cooked nonsense passed as a news story using imaginary sources. Too much obsession with DP William Ruto. Ruto and his team is one and solid," added Duale.
Itumbi, on his part, questioned the publisher's reliance on unnamed sources.
"As always, Daily Nation splashes imagination, fiction and fake news sources direct from the gutter and pretends it is News. Lying anonymous sources created in the collective mind of a lazy newsroom. For the record William Ruto was with team. Uwongo Mtupu! (pure lies)," responded Itumbi.
In the controversial article, the publication claimed that Ruto had been promised a win or in worst cases, a loss with extremely thin margins but that was not to be.
According to the results announced by the IEBC on Friday, November 8, Imran Okoth garnered 24,636 votes beating Mariga who managed 11,230 votes, a difference of 13,406 votes.
Shortly after the announcement, however, Ruto came forward with a congratulatory message to both candidates especially after Mariga garnered a sizeable percentage unheard of in the largely ODM-laced region.
"Pongezi (Congratulations) Benard Okoth for Kibra. Congrats Mariga, Team Jubilee and supporters for daring the so-called 'bedroom', braving the chaos/violence, to double our vote from 12%(2017) to 26% now. Our competitors came down 78% (2017) to 52%. They retained the seat we have served notice," shared the DP.
