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Grand Mullah, Kipkorir in Twitter spat on election


In a social media supremacy war determined by the number of tweets, retweets, likes and followers, lawyers on either side of the political divide have been coming out guns blazing, seeking to tweet the death blow that silences the other forever.

While many Kenyans may not have access to courtroom shenanigans argued out in complex legalese, they have been increasingly treated to legal opinions distilled into 140 or 280 character tweets, seasoned with a fair bit of criticism.

The perpetual fighters are pro-Jubilee lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi and National Super Alliance supporter Donald Kipkorir, who hold no punches and are as fast with their thinly veiled insults at each other as they are with political and legal commentary. There seems to be no love lost between the two.

ACRIMONIOUS

Their tweets have grown more acrimonious to reflect the current toxic political climate in the country, where divisions between the government and opposition have split the country down the middle, leaving a bewildered Judiciary scrambling for the context in which to place the current unprecedented political upheavals.

“When Baba says your girlfriend is pregnant, she is; when he says you go, for sure, you will … So, Dear Chiloba, save us time for 17.10.17,” tweeted Mr Kipkorir early this month, echoing the oft repeated condition by Nasa leader Raila Odinga that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission CEO Ezra Chiloba must be fired if the October 26 election is to be carried out.

To this, Mr Abdullahi retorted: “The embarrassing ballyhoo lately unleashed by my good friend @DonaldBKipkorir in describing the mythical power of Baba would have made a medieval courtier proud”.

And then there was the entertaining exchange where Mr Kipkorir accused Mr Abdullahi of making “zero contributions to jurisprudence in Kenya”.

ABOVE HIS WEIGHT

This was after Mr Abdullahi said Mr Kipkorir was punching above his weight with his tweets about the Supreme Court, telling him “that type of case you will handle in your next life”.

But the two lawyers have insisted that they are still friends and that their differences are merely “ideological”.

Indeed, they have successfully avoided the tribal narrative that has so often coloured Kenyan political opinion, instead focusing on political punching lines, not personal ones, to deliver their blows.

This has seen them avoid going the way of repeat hate mongers some of whom are in court fighting the allegations.

For such people, the political rivalry is peppered with derogatory personal attacks and often leans towards incitement to violence.