Jeff Koinange’s interview with General Peter Malong has continued to elicit heated reactions with a majority of netizens accusing him of attempting to cleanse the former warlord from the accusations raised against him in an investigative documentary by John Allan Namu.
Tana River Director of Communications Steve Juma, who recently worked as an investigative reported with NTV, has come out to reveal that he had been contacted by an emissary of General Malong to organize an interview that would counter the allegations raised by Namu.
He said the emissary was a lady diplomat working for the South Sudanese Embassy and that she had offered him money to organize a counter interview.
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Juma told Pulselive.co.ke that he had declined the offer because of his firm believe in journalistic ethics.
“I will always stand for truth and justice. Even though I have taken a job with the Tana River County Government, I will always remain a journalist. I know what it means to do an investigative story so I could not be the one to delegitimized it (Namu’s story),” Juma said.
The former NTV reporter added that the lady diplomat had informed him that she was in talks with a certain “senior media personality” who was willing to carry out the interview at a cost of Sh600,000.
He added that he was not aware if the said journalist had agreed to interview Malong.
Juma’s revelation came just a day after Koinange became the first Kenyan journalist to interview the South Sudanese General since the damning documentary.
At the beginning of the interview, the former CNN correspondent remarked that it was not “hard to find” Malong as shown in Profiteers.
In his popular documentary, Namu made numerous attempts to contact Malong which proved fruitless.
Koinange did not immediately respond to our request for a comment.
