Pulse Editor's Opinion: Here's what you missed as you gave Babu Owino free publicity

In a week where Kenya has experienced various victories and failures, Embakasi East MP Babu Owino has overshadowed them all by being a top trending topic for most of the week.

Why? Because Kenyans are yet to get over the fact that he shot one DJ Evolve and seriously injured him yet he is out, scot-free, living his best life.

When two MPs decided to disgrace themselves at a patriarch's funeral service, and Babu Owino decided to comment about it, Kenyans online were busy paying him heed and bashing him about the DJ Evolve incident.

When former Governor Mike Sonko's bail ruling was pushed to Tuesday, Kenyans online were once again talking about Babu Owino.

Even as the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) released a list of shame and a list of fame for our leaders, Kenyans online were madly obsessed with this Babu Owino name, using it even in contexts where the MP was not involved.

Putting the Babu Owino issue into perspective

While Mr Owino is quite the character himself, is he deserving of the free publicity we have seemingly decided to offer him?

And while Kenyans online were busy hating his guts and loving his comebacks in equal measure, did we notice that he has drastically reduced the number of posts he puts up on his social media pages?

Did Embakasi East constituents notice that he has been dishing out bursary cheques over the past few weeks? Are they interested in ascertaining that they are indeed the beneficiaries of these bursaries?

Much as it may be an affront to justice that MP Owino may not meet the full force of the law for the shooting incident, why do we so easily forget that DJ Evolve requested to withdraw the suit to focus on treatment and healing?

What you missed

The tide of Kenya's political discourse is changing. We're quickly transitioning from politics of the character to issue-based politics.

As some Kenyans online focused on Babu, others took the fight to the bullies with a campaign against bribery.

Kenyans asked for the government to clear their names from the CRB blacklist and waive their HELB loans as a token in exchange for a "YES" vote for the BBI referendum Bill.

A very welcome form of protest to the tokenism proposed by our national leaders, if you ask me.

In the international scene, High Court Justice Mumbi Ngugi is set to be awarded the Global Jurist of the Year award Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Center for International Human Rights (CIHR).

Kenyan climate policy expert Mohamed Adow became one of this year's two awardees of the Climate Breakthrough Award.

Love him or hate him, President Uhuru Kenyatta also made a remark worth thinking about this week. He said: "Let's instead reflect on where we've come from and where we are now so that we can together decide where the future of Kenya lies."

Turning to our values as a society, did you notice that in just one week, A-list celebrities Mejja and Daddy Owen spoke openly about their divorces.

Shouldn't we be rethinking this marriage institution as a society? Re-evaluating and interrogating what is changing in the family institution?

It is my considered opinion that we - as Kenyans - are missing the bigger debates of our time by placing focus on a single character, who himself, does not care for the attention.

Editor's Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and DO NOT necessarily reflect the position of Pulse as the publisher.