After 18 years in the media industry, the last thing that Shaffie Weru expected was to lose his high-stake position at Homeboyz Radio unceremoniously.
Shaffie lost his job in what he says was an ultimate pay for betrayal by his fans and his employer, Radio Africa Group.
A month later, Shaffie has landed on his feet and is one of the managers of Roya Group of companies.
Roya Group has interests in real estate, motor vehicle sale, investment, entertainment, among others.
He told KTN’s What Your Story over the weekend that this is his new job as the head of the group’s entertainment department.
“This is my new hustle and here we do many things… it does a lot of investments and realtor business…This is my new hustle. This time round I am coming out,” he stated.
Shaffie together with his co-presenter Neville and DJ Joe Mfalme who hosted the Lit Off breakfast show ran into headwinds with Kenyans over their utterance on sexual violence against women.
Shaffie and crew waded into a debate where a woman was thrown off the 12th floor of a building by a man who she met on Facebook.
Eunice Wangari, 20, met Gatama Njoroge for the first time and spent the afternoon together at Ambank House in Nairobi.
Gatama made sexual advances towards her and she resisted. What followed was her being thrown off the 12th floor and landed on the 9th floor.
Their remarks which were perceived to glorify violence against women caused a storm online.
This led to their firing.
Shaffie later issued an intent to sue Radio Africa for Ksh21 million in damages over unfair dismissal.
Shaffie in his demands now suing his employer for Ksh21,157,500 in damages calculated on his annual salary of Ksh682,500 and gratuity for years served.
In response, Radio Africa said that Radio Africa ins a statement said that it will sue Shaffie for breach of contract and negligence.
Radio Africa stated that it would sue its former employee for Ksh150 million in damages citing loss of business and reputational damage.
“His actions were unconscionable and amount to severe gross misconduct. He should have known better having been in the media industry for 18 years and receiving continuous training on media regulators’ programming codes, broadcasting regulations and codes of conduct and ethics. Including a very recent training by the Media Council of Kenya in February 2021 which covered: Ethics and Code of Conduct, Fake news and Fact checking, Interview skills, Conflict Sensitive Journalism, Hate Speech Dilemma in media, On-air presentation skills,” Radio Africa said.
