In their quest to educate and inform the masses, Kenyan journalists sometimes find themselves clashing with powerful individuals who are often perturbed by such actions.
They are threatened, sometimes go missing or even killed, all in the hope that justice and accountability is achieved.
Kenyans.co.ke compiled a number of expose's where journalists have been threatened for various pieces that they have brought to light.
1.) Former KTN investigative reporter Mohamed Ali
During his days as a journalist, Ali rubbed shoulders with government officials, powerful businessmen and women, for exposing social atrocities and injustices by the government.
One time, the now Nyali MP stated that a self-declared powerful Kenyan by the name of Robert Wachira asked him to keep off the government or he would face dire consequences.
"Mr Mohammed Ali, you are a young boy, apparently you just married the other day and you now have a son less than one year old. I want to give you a last warning. life is so precious if you don't know," the post made in 2016 read.
2.) Dennis Okari
The revered investigative journalist has on a number of occasions done pieces that have shaped media conversations and ruffled feathers.
In a previous interview, the journalist disclosed that he had received death threats on numerous occasions as well as got stalked by unknown people.
"I've been threatened so many times. I've been followed in my car, but one thing is I don't fear death. I've done dangerous things.
I've gone to interview terrorists, I've gone to Somalia and the bad story of most of the things that I've done is we've had IEDs set up to blow us up," Okari once stated.
3.) Stellar Murumba
In 2016, the journalist was threatened when she asked about audit queries. She was covering a story involving the loss of Ksh Ksh5 billion at Afya House which was initially reported by the Business Daily and later picked up its sister TV outlet, NTV.
An aggrieved senior government official told the journalist she had no knowledge of government operations. He threatened to snoop into her communication and hack into her bank account.
4.) John Allan Namu
The investigative journalist has on a number of times received death threats over some of the stories that he has covered before.
Specifically, Namu narrated that when he was pursuing the Felicien Kabuga story, both he and his sources received death threats. At the time, Kabuga was a wanted criminal in relation to Rwandan Genocide, was living in Kenya.
"I start to receive threats, some of my sources have been threatened. For two months while I was doing a story here, my wife and my two children were in the safe house with me. I had to pull them out of kindergarten but my wife had to leave work to take care of them. which was a big deal," he stated.
5.) Barrack Oduor
Print journalists have not been spared the danger that their TV counterparts face. This was the case with Nation corresponded who had a brush with death in 2018 when he was abducted alongside Sharon Otieno, a Rongo university student who was found brutally murdered.
The journalist was following up on a story where the student had been allegedly impregnated by Migori Governor Okoth Obado.
Sharon had asked the correspondent to accompany him while she met an aide to Governor Obado. The two were ushered into a vehicle but moments into the ride, Barrack instinctively jumped out of a moving vehicle, sustaining serious bruises on his arms and knees.
Regrettably, Sharon and her unborn baby were found brutally murdered in Kodera forest.
