PRESIDENT UHURU EXPLAINS WHY HE QUIT TWITTER

President Uhuru Kenyatta has for the first time explained why he quit social media platforms.

During the launch of the BBI signature collection at KICC on Wednesday, the head of state said he had found platforms like Twitter abused.

Uhuru said he does not fancy or care about what happens on the platforms.

He said he prefers meeting people at a personal level and engaging them on whatever matter is of interest.

“I meet people personally and we engage, I don’t fancy social media. Si mnaona hata Twitter niliondoka huko kwa sababu niliona hio kitu ni bure na ni matusi tu ndio imejaa huko, hakuna kitu inaendelea,” he said.

This loosely translates to, “You’ve seen I left because I didn’t see its benefit. It’s just full of abuses.”

He added, “Unaka hapo ukisoma watu wanesema nini, unakosa usingizi, unapiga simu vile umetusiwa….” (You sit there reading what people are writing and even lose sleep and start making phone calls).

Uhuru said, “I’d rather get some sleep after chatting with my wife. I wake up the following day, do my work and the world continues peacefully.”

The President’s Twitter account was deactivated in March 2019 with State House saying it was to clean up access.

The action was also taken on all other social media profiles that were posting on behalf of the President.

It was reported that a post, “If you are corrupt we will fight you. You can be my brother or my sister or my closest political ally, but if you are corrupt we will fight you,” was the bone of contention.

Officially, State House Chief of Staff Nzioka Waita then said there were “unauthorised” individuals with access to the President’s social media accounts.

“All official social media handles for the President have been temporarily suspended to allow for the necessary remedial measures to be undertaken,” Waita said.

However, it emerged that the ‘closest political ally’ was not supposed to go out on the official communication. This, however, happened with the tweets and the email dispatch from the Presidential Strategic Communication Unit.

The phrase ‘closest political ally’ which would be construed to mean Deputy President William Ruto was edited out of the video and audio dispatched by PSCU to newsrooms.

That was not the first time that Waita took action after previously deactivating accounts that were associated with the PSCU.

In July 2018, Uhuru Kenyatta’s communication channels were renamed with State House saying it was aimed at enhancing accessibility and flow of information from his office.

Twitter handles – @PresidentKE and @PSCU_Digital unit – were affected.

Waita said State House had reviewed digital media accounts used to convey official information on Uhuru’s activities.

He said the official Twitter channels would be @StateHouseKenya, @UKenyatta, @FirstLadyKenya and @KanzeDena.

On Facebook, the official pages would be State House Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta and Office of the First Lady Kenya.

Sourced from The Star

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