Tuesday, July 5, 2022 – The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has waded into the ongoing debate on Deputy President William Ruto’s audio recording where he threatened to slap President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2017 after the Court nullified their victory.
The controversial audio created a buzz, with Ruto’s opponents, Azimio La Umoja, playing it in several rallies to discredit the DP.
The Azimio brigade even went on to call on the NCIC to take action against the deputy president for threatening the head of state.
However, NCIC has rubbished Azimio’s claims that Ruto’s leaked audio amounted to hate speech and incitement.
Speaking during an interview, NCIC commissioner Sam Kona, clarified that the audio lacked the threshold warranting investigation.
Kona argued that NCIC would have acted if proven that the audio intended to cause bodily harm or create animosity between rivaling groups or meting actual violence to the subject, President Uhuru.
“NCIC draws the line between a verbal attack against an individual and against a community because most incidents of hate speech lead to violence when the evidence is manipulated and used by a particular community to advance a political goal.”
“The difference between the President and the Deputy President has come into political space and raised NCIC eyebrows.”
“So far what we have heard is what happened several years ago,” Kona explained.
However, he underlined that NCIC deployed a multi-agency team to monitor political events and warned politicians from making speeches that border on hate speech.
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