There is a quiet irony playing out between the Standard Group and the Communications Authority of Kenya over unpaid airwaves. The men at the helm of both organisations, Chacha Mwita and David Mugonyi, are not strangers throwing stones from a distance, but close friends caught in that awkward moment where personal ties must politely step aside when duty calls.
David and Chacha’s story goes back to 1991, when they both joined the University of Nairobi’s Kikuyu Campus for a Bachelor of Education degree. The two age mates sat in the same English and Literature classes, argued over texts and ideas, and walked out together in 1996 with the same degree in hand. Teaching may have been the formal path, but even then, their shared drift toward journalism was hard to miss—almost inevitable. It was therefore no surprise when both found their way, almost in tandem, to the University of Nairobi’s School of Journalism, sharpening the same instincts that would later define their careers.
From there, they landed at the Nation Media Group, both as young journalists finding their footing and as great buddies with a shared history and an easy understanding of each other’s rhythm. And now, the mother of all ironies: Mugonyi was actually Mwita’s best man in a wedding conducted at Don Bosco Church.
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Later, life pulled them onto different paths when other duties called. Yet today, it has a sense of humour—bringing them back to a point of convergence, not in personal disagreement, but in a professional standoff involving the very institutions they now lead. One speaks for regulation, the other for publication; both, in their own way, simply doing their jobs.
I went to school with David. I worked with Mwita. So I, too, find myself in a small, private dilemma—watching two good men, bound by history, now meeting across the table not as classmates or colleagues, but as custodians of different mandates. Life can be a rather cheeky editor.
The Kamukuywa Oracle wishes his friends well, hoping that duty won’t break the ties that bind.
-By Otuma Ongalo via Facebook
