Ruto hits out at NCIC over “Hatupangwingwi” ban

Deputy President William Ruto has hit back at the National Cohesion and Integration Commission after listing words likely to spread hate speech in the country.

The Commission on Friday listed “Hatupangwingwi” a term commonly used by the second in command among words it said may be used to spread hate during this electioneering period.

“I think it is an exercise in futility to try and tell us which Swahili/English words we should use, we are intelligent and knowledgeable people; we know what we are saying,” said the Deputy President.

“To our competitors, please try and cobble together a plan and an agenda to sell to the people of Kenya. Stop wasting your time trying to re-engineer our literature,” he added.

This comes after a study to identify a lexicon of hate words employed by influential people to incite violence on one part of the population, some ethnic groups against other ethnic groups.

According to the NCIC, the study main objective was to explore the commonly used coded hate speech terms in Kenya, establish how the coded terms are perceived by the users and ascertain how these coded terms are perceived by the target communities.

Other words on NCIC’s list include; fumigation, eliminate, kill, uncircumcised, madoadoa, mende, kaffir, watajua hawajui, operation linda kura among others.

Unmoved by the NCIC report, DP Ruto proceeded to post on his social media Twitter page the Sipangwingwi remix hours after NCIC declared the word as hate speech.