NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 27 — The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has refuted claims suggesting it intents to ban the use of the term “tugege” a Kikuyu word employed to describe someone as clueless or confused.
This term has recently gained notoriety with some individuals using it to criticize various politicians and government officials.
The commission distanced itself from allegations of a looming ban and urged the public to disregard them.
“The Commission disassociates itself from these allegations. Kindly ignore them.”
NCIC has banned similar phrases in the past citing the propensity to promote discord in the society.
In April, at the height of the 2022 election campaigns, NCIC listed President William Ruto’s campaign phrase Hatupangwingwi among banned phrases deemed as hate speech.
On April 8, the Commission’s Chairperson Samuel Kobia stated that politicians should also avoid the use of words like Madodadoa (blemishes), Operation Linda Kura (protect the vote) and Fumigation.
“It is crystal clear that we chose to create a list of words that we know are problematic in how they are used in the 2022 campaigns,” he stated.
The catalogue NCIC dubbed ‘Hatelex’ included words and terms from English, Kiswahili, Sheng, Kikuyu, Meru and Kalenjin.
“Words in the English language include fumigation and uncircumcised. Those in Swahili include chunga kura, Madoadoa, watajua hawajui and Mende while in Sheng we have terms such as hatupangwingwi and kama mbaya mbaya,” stated Kobia.
NCIC also banned words including: eliminate, kwekwe, chinja kafir, watu wa kurusha mawe and kill.
He denied political motivation in banning the phrases.
