Kenya and Tanzania are at war, but the battle is being fought virtually, mostly behind computers, tablets, and phone keyboards.
Each country is trying to outsmart the other with offensive memes, AI Video Clips and long posts written to threaten, insult or mock one another, in a bad way.
The verbal exchanges have escalated to an extent of forming agendas in each country’s parliamentary sessions.
The virtual and digital wars between Kenya and Tanzania by keyboard warriors follows the recent incident in which some politicians, lawyers and activists from Nairobi got arrested and detained in Dar-es-salaam after arriving in Tanzania.
Later some reportedly underwent mistreatment and torture under police custody before being deported back to Kenya unceremoniously.
They were in Tanzania to attend the proceeding of the case against Tundu Lissu, Tanzania’s opposition leader who was recently arrested and charged with sedition.
After the incidents, Kenya’s mostly youth population reacted by taking on various online platforms, insulting their southern neighbours, who also retaliated, measure for measure.
The battlefields remain the youth-oriented platforms such as ‘Tik Tok,’ ‘Facebook,’ Instagram,’ ‘Threads,’ and ‘WhatsApp.’ Tanzania recently blocked Twitter, which can only now be accessed via VPN.
Eventually things got so bad that, the ongoing budgetary sessions in each of the country’s parliaments started debating on the issue, with some legislators lashing out against their counterparts across the border.
In fact, a lady member of parliament in Tanzania claimed that her smartphone number was leaked online and has been receiving rains of insults from across the border, from obscene callers who either phoned directly or sent her a series of WhatsApp messages reaching 50,000 texts and counting.
The President of Kenya, William Ruto has tried to intervene, calling for peace, pleading with his people to stop and even apologizing to Tanzania on their behalf.
But the young Kenyans are still going for the jugular vein, with the war behind keyboards.
The Speaker for the Tanzania’s National Assembly, Tulia Ackson has also warned members of parliament sitting in the Dodoma to stop using harsh and foul language while discussing the issue, as it was against the laws and regulations of the house.