Kenyans woke up on Monday to a Facebook post of Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya “endorsing” Cleophas Malala, the Kenya Kwanza governor candidate for Kakamega.
The post that was accompanied by a photo of Malala smiling caused a debate on social media with many wondering if Oparanya had abandoned ODM candidate Fernandes Barasa.
The post published some minutes past 9am had garnered more than 9,800 comments and more than 1,400 shares on Facebook an hour later, as calls were made left, right and center.
However, moments later Oparanya, through his Twitter handle, indicated that his account had been hacked and that he had engaged DCI to try and recover his Facebook account.
“This is to NOTIFY the general public that my Facebook page has been hacked by agents of doom. IGNORE any post on my Facebook page as we await @DCI_Kenya to handle the matter and restore it. Thank you,” he posted on Twitter.
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However, according to sources, a former administrator of the outgoing Kakamega Governor’s social media handles had made the malicious unauthorized post on his page.
The source who spoke to Swala Nyeti intimated that the administrator, who fell out with Oparanya months back and was hired by his opponents, made the post to get back at him.
The person is reported to have also withdrawn the editing rights of other members of Oparanya’s social media team rendering them unable to moderate or delete the post.
The governor is said to have already engaged the services of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to track down the errant former employee and recover the account.
Malala is squaring it out with ODM’s Fernandes in the Kakamega County gubernatorial election, which was supposed to be held on August 9 but was rescheduled twice by IEBC.
IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati, while announcing the initial postponement on August 8 evening, said there was a mix-up in the candidates’ photos, and the second time on August 17 he blamed it on alleged security concerns after the contestation of the General Elections.
