Shatta Bway Quits Radio Citizen After Five Years

Popular radio host Steve Jacob Maunda alias Shatta Bway has stepped down from Radio Citizen under the Royal Media Services (RMS) after five years.

The station, which is among the most listened to in the country, announced his exit on Monday, March 18 through its social media handles.

Bway was famous for hosting the Waks Tikitaka show on Radio Citizen alongside Q-Tee and DJ Rambo from 10 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

He also hosted a morning show on Citizen TV which revolved around common relationship issues in modern society.

Shatta Bway with his former colleague Willis Raburu as well as Agnes Nonsizi and life coach CJ Atemo at Citizen TV studios. /SHATTA BWAY

Bway revealed that he was leaving the industry at the height of his media career to focus on raising his children as a widower.

He is a father of two, a teenage boy aged 13 years and a younger daughter and had lost his wife on June 25, 2023, after falling ill and getting admitted to hospital for some time.

"Where I am at in life, I am making decisions as two parents. I have to think like a mother and as a father and I need time with my children.

"My son is a teenager aged 13 years old and that is the point a parent is like to lose their children unknowingly," he explained.

Bway added that he felt he needed to spend more time with his children and that he felt he could not stay in a career which risked snatching that opportunity away from him, thus missing out on accomplishing what he wanted to do with his children.

In a live broadcast he made shortly after the announcement, the radio host opened up on his spell as a tout at Country Bus in Nairobi for two years before venturing into the media industry.

"I served as a tout for two years in a bus that plied the Nairobi - Kisii - Migori route. I was still in college at the time pursuing media studies.

"Later, I tried my hand at acting and went to Kenya National Theater where I got roles as a setbooks character. It was a difficult job," he divulged.

He then revealed that he first joined RMS through its subsidiary Viusasa video streaming platform where he worked as a scriptwriter, seizing the opportunity to venture into radio through a demo.

"A few years later after the demo, I was called by someone called Vinny who asked me to reshare the radio demo with him.

"They listened to it and called me. After an interview, they told me that they were giving me a show on Radio Citizen," he added.

He credited his father Jacob William Maunda, a journalist at KBC, for being his role model. Fans have since wished him the very best in his future endeavours.

Shatta Bway at Radio Citizen Studios. /SHATTA BWAY