State House had Linus Kaikai fired from Nation Media and nearly scuttled his move to Royal Media. Four years down the line the journalist as emerged a victor.
In February 2018, Kaikai left Nation Media Group (NMG) in the capacity of NTV General Manager to join Royal Media Services (RMS) as its Chief Operations Officer, a position previous held by now Lands CS Farida Karoney.
Kaikai fell out with State House after he allowed NTV to air the mock swearing-in of Raila Odinga as the people’s president at Uhuru park on January 30th 2018.
A day before Raila’s mock swearing-in, Kaikai, as chairman of the Kenya Editors Guild, had issued a hard hitting statement in which he castigated attempts by State House to gag the media after media owners and managers were summoned to the House on the Hill and presented with what Interior CS Fred Matiang’i would later call a “full prior security brief” on why they should not cover the NASA event live.
Kaikai’s statement caught both State House and NMG managers, including NMG Editor-in-Chief Tom Mshindi who had attended the meeting, off guard.
At the meeting, President Uhuru is reported to have threatened media owners that the government would revoke their operating licenses if they defied the order.
State House hit back at Kaikai by forcing his exit from NMG and blocking his appointment at RMS.
It’s alleged that President Uhuru personally called RMS vice chairperson Purity Gathoni Macharia to talk her out of hiring Kaikai.
Despite Uhuru’s phone call, Kaikai still moved to RMS albeit to a less influential position. SK Macharia owned media house had already signed a contract with Kaikai and terminating it even at the behest of the president would still open them up for litigation.
RMS was forced to hire Kaikai as Director of Strategy and Innovation instead of Chief Operations Officer.
According to Business Today, RMS decided to woo Kaikai with a sweet package. They agreed to take liability for a mortgage and regular Sacco loans he owed amounting to over Ksh20 million.
RMS instead appointed Fred Afune as its Chief Operations Officer to avoid getting in President Uhuru’s bad books.
Afune served as Radio and TV Production Director at RMS. Former KTN Managing Editor Joe Ageyo was named Editorial Director at RMS.
Four years later in March 2022, Ageyo left RMS to pursue his own interests and guess who replaced him? Linus Kaikai.
Kaikai’s appointment was announced on Wednesday March 9th by RMS Managing Director Wachira Waruru.
“As Editorial Director, Linus will oversee the administrative and editorial functions of our news and current affairs operations across the RMS platforms,” Waruru said.
