The translated clip showed Maalim claiming sensationally that if he were the Head of State, he would never allow Gen Z to stage protests in the first place.
KTN News anchor, Ken Mijungu, on Tuesday, July 9 announced that Daadab Member of Parliament Farah Maalim has been banned from being hosted on his show permanently.
Mijungu’s move was in response to a viral clip which captured him allegedly telling President William Ruto to rein in Gen Z protesters who have been exercising their constitutional rights in opposition to the Finance Bill 2024.
The translated clip showed Maalim claiming sensationally that if he were the Head of State, he would never allow Gen Z to stage protests in the first place.
The video in question depicted the lawmaker making remarks bordering on incitement and advising President William Ruto to take extremist action against the protests.
Daadab MP Farah Maalim during a past Citizen TV interview. /FILE
“A member of Parliament is on camera saying if he was the president the day demonstrators breached parliament he would have killed 5,000 of them!
“A LAWMAKER said this! A SEASONED Legislator. As a patriotic Kenyan, I will never host him on my show again! Never,” he wrote on X.
However, the lawmaker in defence of the video that went viral, claimed that the video was manipulated as a political weapon to be used against him.
Backing up his claims, Maalim further accused unidentified people from Somalia of digitally altering the clip in response to chiming in on the politics of Somalia.
“The video making the rounds has been edited. It’s all cutting and pasting, taking a word from here and putting it together.
“It is Somalis who basically would do that, for other reasons, because I also weighed in on the politics of Somalia,” the Wiper Party elected legislator claimed.
The parliamentarian however did not deny the part where he remarked that Gen Z was attempting a coup against a democratically elected government.
It is yet to be clear if bodies such as the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) would take action against Maalim given that they are known for cracking down on politicians and prominent individuals making remarks bordering on hate speech and incitement.
Mijungu meanwhile, despite Maalim’s defence, vowed not to invite the legislator to the KTN studios within the Standard Group Limited based on Mombasa Road.
It is worth noting that this is Mijungu’s personal reference, with Standard Group reserving the right to invite the legislator to interviews and talk shows.
It is unclear if the media house would follow in Mijungu’s shoes and ban the legislator from its other talk shows and interviews altogether in response to the remarks.
Inside Standard Group newsroom. /STANDARD DIGITAL