For the first time since Ezekiel Mutua earned the title ‘Moral Cop’, Kenyans on social media have surprisingly agreed with the KFCB boss on popular entertainment show ’10 Over 10.’
Taking to his official Facebook page over the weekend, Ezekiel Mutua took issue with the Citizen TV show describing it as “one of the most obscene shows ever to be aired on the mainstream media in Kenya.”
The show, which airs every Friday night past the watershed period (10 pm), is hosted by Joey Muthengi and Willis Raburu. Last week, Mseto East Africa’s Mzazi Willy M Tuva filled in for the inexplicably missing Willis Raburu.
On Saturday, Ezekiel Mutua noted that he had “received a barrage of complaints from parents and concerned Kenyans about the show.”
He criticized the lack of moral uprightness in the show calling it an epitome of indecency.
“To have young boys and girls gyrating their bodies on each other like lunatics while being cheered on by irresponsible adults who call themselves show hosts is the most disgusting abuse of national frequencies,” read part of his post.
He further noted that although the show airs outside the watershed period, it involves young boys and girls behaving badly live on set, and in-between it advertises beer, cigarettes and condoms.
“This is a discotheque on tv. The show violates our content regulation guidelines and should be condemned by all decent Kenyans,” wrote Mutua.
Read his full statement below.
“I have received a barrage of complaints from parents and concerned Kenyans about 10/10 show that airs on Citizen TV on Friday night. This is one of the most obscene shows ever to be aired on the mainstream media in Kenya where young boys and girls are paraded in a diabolical show of scatology, engulfed in smoke, amidst blaring and deafening noise. It’s the epitome of indecency and goes against everything that a morally upright society holds dear.
To have young boys and girls gyrating their bodies on each other like lunatics while being cheered on by irresponsible adults who call themselves show hosts is the most disgusting abuse of national frequencies. Although 10/10 comes outside the watershed period (10pm) it involves young boys and girls behaving badly live on set, and in-between it advertises beer, cigarettes and condoms. This is a discotheque on tv.
The show violates our content regulation guidelines and should be condemned by all decent Kenyans. It’s immaterial how popular the show is or how much money the station makes from it.This is not entertainment. It’s using the precious airtime to destroy the moral values of our young people by providing a platform for them to behave badly.
Now, this programs comes out of the watershed period but that does not make it right. Our mandate in content rating and classification for age suitability is between 5am to 10pm. The rationale behind our role as a content regulator is to protect children from exposure to harmful content. For adults, we can only play an advisory role, unless the said content jeopardizes national security. It’s expected that after 10pm all underage children should be asleep and that parents should take responsibility for what their kids watch.
While I blame Citizen TV for such blatant violation of decency, any parent who allows their kids to participate in such a show should equally shoulder the blame. Those kids don’t cover their faces. They act live and their parents must be aware. We all must take responsibility for the evil in our media.
The bigger picture should be for all of us to work together to promote decency and ensure that unpalatable content with potential to corrupt moral values is not shown to our children. KFCB has submitted a bill in Parliament to strengthen our mandate in content regulation but consumers have the power to say no to such indecency like 10/10!”
Unlike Mutua’s past fights against TV content, Kenyans appeared to agree with him on “10 Over 10.”
Here are some comments from Facebook;
