Ciku Muiruri to Ciru Muriuki: I’m not your punching bag, you found me here!

Veteran media personality and author Ciku Muiruri is breathing fire after BBC TV host, Ciru Muriuki, allegedly accused her [Muiruri] of sending out certain tweets that end up affecting Muriuki’s brand negatively.   

Ciku alleges that given the near-similarity in the spelling and pronunciation of their names, Ciru has been out to rein in on what Ciku posts in a bid to protect her brand.

But Ciku says she owes no one a duty of care on how she uses her social media pages, so long as her posts are accepted by the wider society and abide by the rules of appropriate online posting.

Ciku further claims that Ciru shouldn’t feel she is more of a brand than her, given Ciru found her in the industry and chose to adopt a name nearly-similar to hers [Ciku’s] despite being advised against doing so by her former boss.

Ciku Muiruri posted her gripe on her official Facebook page on Friday, September 27.

Below is her post:

“I did my first radio show in 1998. In my many, many, many, years on radio doing Busted etc I have used my name. On my newspaper columns, I have used my name. On my book #LoveisButADream and all my social media pages, I have used my name.

“Someone comes onto the scene many, many, many years later, and uses a name similar to mine, and now cries victim every time she is mistaken for me.

“A boss of ours – Pete Sinclair – actually refused her to use the name during her stint at Radio Africa and said she would be mistaken for me. She had no choice but to listen to him and use her English name. All was well.

“But alas, she then went on to join NTV where she disregarded his advice and went on [to] use the name. Enter the case of mistaken identity that follows until this very day. And now, I am supposedly the bad guy because I need to watch what I tweet for her sake. Wait, what?
A friend of hers actually went on a morning TV show and said my ‘bad manners’ (??) are affecting her. What the actual hell? That’s the final straw for me.

“I refuse to be used as a punching bag when you found me here, minding my own business. If you want your brand to stand out, the first logical step is not to ride on someone else’s name and then cry foul when it no longer suits you. Reap the whirlwind.”

In mid-September this year, Ciru Muriuki found herself facing the wrath of Kenyans on Twitter after the online users confused her for Ciku Mururi, whom they accused of taking advantage of the Tob Cohen murder story to sell her book titled “Love is But a Dream”.

Ciku claimed, in her social media post, that she knew both Cohen and his widow, Sarah Wairimu. At the end of her post, she asked her followers to buy her book so as to find out more about her thoughts on love.

Ciru woke up on a Saturday morning (September 14) to a barrage of scathing comments from Kenyans on Twitter who accused her of not caring for the welfare of Cohen's mourning family.

“I am not @MissCiku. I haven’t written a book. I never hosted a show named Busted. And I haven’t tweeted anything about dogs. Aki please I was just doing my juice cleanse in peace,” tweeted Ciru Muriuki, whose formal name is Angela Wanjiru Muriuki.