Mombasa Governor Abdullswamad Sherrif Nassir revealed his past life in media that is barely known to the public.
Speaking on Monday, February 13, during the World Radio Day celebration with the Media Council of Kenya at Mombasa County, he revealed that he also worked in media before joining politics.
After his experience as a journalist, he began his own radio station.
“I worked at Pulse FM, where I began in the production department to radio presentation then went to marketing.
I later started my own radio station – Radio Rahma– where I was a presenter and the manager,” he announced.
After joining politics, managing the radio station became hard forcing him to give out managerial duties.
“I had to give out my rights of managing radio after getting into politics. If there is something I want to do after my life in politics is get back into media.
I previously worked with KTN presenter Ali Manzu, BBC journalist Roncliffe Odit, ex-BBC editor Joseph Odhiambo and Amina who ended up with the Voice of America,” the first-time governor narrated.
When beginning his own radio station, he received a lot of questions from his close friends who wondered why he had decided to venture into it with so much concern.
He revealed that he had a future in mind as he believes there is a great future in media.
“When I was a Member of Parliament, in what I saw as a power of radio, I started a community radio and we were the first constituency-funded community radio which we handed over to Kenya national course polytechnic, we called it Mvita FM. One day we will have Mombasa FM.
When I was launching Mvita FM, a lot of people asked me why I did so but I wanted to append my signature that at no given time any politician should lay claim that they were part of starting that radio station,” he noted.
He called on all the journalists in the country to stick to the code of ethics, conduct, and practice of journalism. He further encouraged them to work with the county government for their own benefit and that of the public.
“As we are celebrating World Radio Day, am hoping that we will work together to build on local content and show our talent and nurture the young talents,” the governor indicated.
Abdullswamad further revealed that he had a summit meeting and resolved that in a period of six months, the Mombasa county security committees will be revived under the chair of county governance.
“I hope all media houses will work with us to enhance peace and security within our areas. Commencing this year we will have our own media awards as Mombasa county.
We will be giving priority to local media houses in terms of funding for all our programs, advertisements, and anything else,” he noted.
Nassir was elected during the August 2022 general election after garnering 119,083 votes against his closest rival UDA’s Hassan Omar who got 98,108 votes.
He had been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Mvita Constituency between 2013 and 2022.
Source: kENYANS.CO.KE