The national Authority for the campaign Against Alcohol and drug abuse(NACADA) has issued a statement requesting for closing down of bars and alcohol joints a day before elections which is 8th August 2022.
According to the chief Executive officer of NACADA, Victor Okioma, intoxication by alcohol results to poor judgement, this can lead to violence in such places.
In his statement,” We are calling for a closure of all bars during elections. Business owners, religious leaders and security agents have met and agreed that there would be no bars in operation during the eve of the elections and during the elections.”
The chief executive officer of NACADA further stated that talks,regarding the closure, with the minister of interior, Fred Matiang’i are underway.
According to him, most counties were already for the idea and he requested if the remaining counties could also join him to promote peace during the election period.
Okioma, pleaded with the youth not to be used in promoting violence since elections are in a week’s time. In line with that, he urged the politicians to promote peace and not use these youths to carry out violence.
In his statement, “We are calling on the leaders not to misuse the youth. We ask them not to be used to disrupt rallies. That is the engagement we are having across the country.”
The statement comes days after the national cohesion and integration commission(NCIC) called for shutdown of facebook which was being used as a platform to spread propaganda and hate speech. However, this was rejected by the CS for interior and CS for communication that shut down of social media was not going to happen.
In a statement by Fred Matiang’i, “We work in a democratic set up. We are not going to interefere with social media and the internet just because of elections,my colleague in ICT have expressed ourseleves on the matter several times before.”