Lifestyle

Sports Betting, Bobi Wine, Riparian Land, Kobi Kihara, and Asbel Kiprop Among the Most Searched Items in August

BY Soko Directory Team · September 4, 2018 09:09 am

Google on Monday released the top trending searches in Kenya for the month of August 2018, where Sports betting platforms dominated the list of search items with Bobi Wine, Riparian Land, Asbel Kiprop and Kobi Kihara also being among the top searches.

Through the results, once again it is clear how sports betting is becoming a national pastime. Betting sites like sportpesa, betpawa, betika, betin, forebet, premier bet, among others took the first place while EPL fixtures, results, and real-time scores came second.

Some of the most searched matches included Chelsea vs Arsenal, Arsenal vs Man City and Chelsea vs Man City.

The third most searched item was the former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who died on 18 August 2018 after a short illness. Mr. Annan is fondly remembered in Kenya after he brokered a peace deal between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, that ended the post-election turmoil in 2008.

The fourth most popular search item was Bobi Wine, the Ugandan musician turned politician known as Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, who was recently incarcerated for more than a week after being accused of treason.

Kyagulanyi was arrested in northern Uganda and his driver shot dead amid clashes between opposition supporters and security forces. His arrest sparked protests in Uganda and Kenya where MPs called on neighboring Uganda to release him.

With the unprecedented drawn-out cold season in many parts of the country, many Kenyans searched for news about the weather — making this the fourth most searched term.

Riparian Land was the sixth trending item on Google, as Kenyans sought to find out the meaning of the term. This came after the Nairobi County government demolished several commercial properties that are said to have been built on riparian land reserves. According to Nairobi city regulations, no commercial or residential property is allowed within 30 meters of a riverbank — the section of land referred to as riparian land — in order to protect the water table.

TV personality Kobi Kihara also dominated the top searches for August, at 7th position, after claims of lifting dozens of images from around the web and posting them on her Instagram page as her own creations. She later deleted several images from her account and eventually disabled her social media account.

Eighth on the list was American singer and songwriter Aretha Franklin, who died on 16 August 2018 after a long fight with pancreatic cancer. Ms. Franklin was popularly known as “The Queen of Soul” after her songs topped American charts for decades. She is remembered for hit songs such as “Respect”, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, and “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)”, among others.

At position 9 was Asbel Kiprop, the three-time 1,500m world champion who was recently involved in a public love triangle. A video clip of Kiprop in a compromising position with a woman said to be married, made rounds on social media platforms stirring public controversy about the athlete.

Closing the list of top ten Kenyan trending searches in August was former US Senator John McCain, who died on August 25, a day after McCain’s family announced that he would no longer receive treatment for his brain cancer. In 1967, during the Vietnam War, while on a bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder over Hanoi in October 1967, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973.

In the ‘Top How to’ category, the top trending search was “How to write a CV”, indicating a surge in the number of Kenyans either unemployed and looking for a job, or seeking a change of jobs.

According to a recent survey by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), seven million Kenyans are unemployed, 1.4 million of which have been actively looking for work.

The second most searched item “How to make money online” and the third “How to write an application letter”, were also career-oriented.

The fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth trending search items in this category were all cuisine related. These were, respectively: “How to bake a cake”, “How to cook pilau”, “How to make pancakes” and “How to cook spaghetti”. These seem to be some of the most recurring food searches.

Kenyans also went to the Google search engine to find out “how to buy KPLC tokens”, at seventh position. This particular item has been recurrent in past top search lists.

Finally, Kenyans have also been showing a heightened interest in being successful in life, evidenced in the ninth and tenth most searched items in this category. Kenyans searched for “How to Join Illuminati in Kenya for free” and “How to be successful in life” in the month of August.

Google Search Trends is a publicly available tool that indicates search patterns over a period of time and shows the clusters of searches that made it to the weekly trending searches in the country.

Here are results for the most popular searches by Kenyans in the past month in descending order:

Betting platforms (sportpesa, betpawa, betika, betin, forebet…)
EPL
Kofi Annan
Bobi Wine
Weather
Riparian Land
Kobi Kihara
Aretha Franklin
Asbel Kiprop
John McCain