How my life changed after I was arraigned: Jacque Maribe

Former Citizen Television journalist Jacque Maribe has -- for the first time -- given a sneak peek into her life one year after she parted ways with her former employer on the back of a murder charge pressed against her.

Maribe alongside her former fiancé, Joseph Irungu, alias Jowie, are accused of killing businesswoman Monica Kimani, whose body was found in her Lamuria Gardens home on September 20, 2018.

Both Maribe and Irungu have since been charged with murder, with each of them pleading not guilty to the crime. Maribe was, on October 30, 2018, released on Ksh1 million cash bail after spending one month under lawful custody.

Her ex-fiancé, however, wasn’t equally as lucky as he was detained for over 500 days, before finally being granted a Ksh2 million cash bail by High Court judge, James Wakiaga, on February 13, 2020.

Following an October 2018 court directive, which barred Maribe from anchoring news bulletins or interviewing news sources, the undeniably talented journalist was redeployed to the news-editing department as the lunchtime news editor. News editors usually go through reporters’ scripts to eliminate structural, grammatical and factual errors.

Maribe dispensed her duties as an editor until July 3, 2019, when she was told to resign after requesting for time off work over “personal reasons”, only to be seen throwing her support behind former State House digital strategist Dennis Itumbi, who had been arrested and arraigned on claims of authoring and circulating a fake letter alleging that four ministers had plotted to kill Deputy President William Ruto.

Since that day, very little of Maribe was seen or written in media outlets.

The journalist now describes her past year as a “rollercoaster of a ride”.

In a teaser video of a new online production about her life post-arraignment, Maribe says she is now ready to pick herself up and reclaim her throne. The interview dubbed The Hot Seat will be broadcast on the journalist’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages this Sunday, August 9, at 8pm.

Describing her life pre-arraignment, Maribe said: “You feel like everything is falling into place, and everything is making so much sense… until one day you have no idea what the world just decides to do… Like, literally, [everything is brought to] a standstill.”

She says she cringed to see a career and brand she had taken years to build crumble in a matter of days.

“Something that you love doing so much, it is…. (Takes a deep breath). I don’t know. It (life post-arraignment) has been a rollercoaster of a ride this past year… Trying to take it all in, trying to smile even though you know you can’t [afford a genuine smile]. But, instead of allowing yourself to be down, do you know what you should do? You get back up, and take it by the horns!” said Maribe.

In her caption of the teaser video, the mother-of-one says she is “back after a sabbatical from your screens…”, and she will, in the Hot Seat interview, open up about her “political affiliations and offer in-depth inspiration”.

The production was done by, among others, former Weekend with Betty producer, Sarah Mwangi.