Citizen TV news anchor and radio presenter Jeff Mwaura Koinange is one of the best and most admired journalists in the country.
The veteran journalist joined the S.K Macharia owned media house, Royal media Services in 2017. He currently runs the prime time news show JKL on Wednesdays and Sunday Live alongside Victoria Rubadiri. Besides that, he hosts the Hot 96 breakfast show alongside Nick Odhiambo.
Jeff began his journalism career by working with KTN soon after completing his college studies before working with the international media houses.
After losing his job at the Cable News Network(CNN) he rejoined the country’s media houses, working first at K24, where he hosted The Bench Show and later in KTN.
Prior to joining CNN, he had worked for ABC News(1991-1992), CBN News(1994) and Reuters TV between 1995-2001 where he would cover African stories. Between 1999-2001, he worked as the station’s chief producer.
In the past, he revealed that his CNN boss fired him over the phone as he was driving along the highway. Some of the things that led to his firing were a Nigerian story that he was accused of faking, bribery and rape allegations. The bad news came at a time when his child was on the way.
“My boss called me and asked me to pull off the highway and he said, “listen man, there is too much crap, too many rumors and the Nigerians think you stage-managed that story, I don’t think we can sustain you longer, we will need to let you go,'” Jeff said in the past.
In early 2007, before being fired in May 2007, Jeff had done a story on the Niger Delta, where he interviewed rebels who had troubled the country’s security. The armed rebels allegedly from Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta(MEND) even took Jeff to where they were holding Philippine hostages. The Nigerian government claimed that the story had been stage-managed.
That aside, Jeff was accused of rape by a European Businesswoman Marianne Briner, who happened to be his friend
According to Jeff, the woman wanted him to help her promote her book that was about corruption and murder in Kenya but Jeff was not willing probably because the matter was very sensitive.
He said that he only communicated with the woman through mails. Jeff claimed that she began stalking her and threatening her through mails after he failed to give in to her demands.
“One day she wrote a story on her blog that I had attempted to rape her. The rumors got to my boss who ended up firing me,” he said.
Briner claimed that Jeff raped her while they were out on a date. She also shared romantic conversations she had allegedly had with Jeff.
Her expose also shed more light to the Niger Delta story where Jeff was accused of bribing his sources.
Briner narrated the incident when Jeff had her against her will. The two had allegedly gone out on the date to discuss the details of the book
“I was still in the bathroom when he entered my room – not after 15 minutes as I had asked him, but after less than 5 minutes. Without any warning, he opened the sliding doors of my bathroom – pulled me out telling me “Don’t feel shy with me…”. And then the big shock: he was already nakèd …. he then pushed me on the bed and in seconds tried to enter me….. I struggled and asked him several times to stop – but he forced himself into me,” she narrated.
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