National Super Alliance (NASA) presidential candidate Raila Odinga has said his coalition has not called its supporters to boycott East Africa’s biggest and most profitable telecom Safaricom.
In a tweet from his verified account, Raila said NASA had not placed any advert in any newspaper calling for telecommunication service provide.
He was reacting on a day that a newspaper screenshot appeared in the social media with an advert carrying NASA Coalition logo and contact details purportedly calling for the boycott.
“We direct immediate boycott of Safaricom and their products across Kenya as a measure of the people’s voice against on-going efforts between safaricom and Jubilee Party to ste yet another election in which Safaricom intends again to transmit elections in a fraudulent, illegal and unconstitutional manner,” said the advert.
Authors of the advert said the boycott would serve as a way by NASA supporters to punish those “seeking to steal the (people’s) will.”
In what is clearly another incidence of fake news, the advert is supposed to have been placed in the dailies. However, we can confirm after a physical check of the dailies, no newspaper carried such an advert today.
“NASA Coalition has not placed any such advertisement in any publication,” said Raila in his midday tweet.
Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Bob Collymore last week warned that he would hold Raila personally responsible if any harm came to his staff following NASA’s claim that six employees of the telecom had been involved in a conspiracy to rig the annulled presidential election on August 8.