Most of those who've argued against it have pushed some sort of argument from freedom of expression. It isn't always clear just what is being said, but I think two sorts of things are being said: that either government has no right at all to regulate the speech of Kenyans, or that it has such a right but may exercise it only in emergencies.

Both arguments are hopeless. 

If you're going to say that government has no right to regulate Kenyans' speech, then it would be nice to point to some fact about their speech (or some other tremendously compelling reason) which immunizes it from regulation. No such facts have been produced. On the other hand, we severe penalties are imposed on doctors, lawyers, and witnesses who perjure themselves. It is sufficient, to incur those penalties, to have uttered a falsehood of some kind. If saying something false is enough to expose you to liability, then your speech is being regulated. There's no difficulty spotting that the government is within its rights in these latter cases, so it seems clear, to me at least, that GoK can justly regulate your speech. 

Now, you'll notice that I haven't even considered incitement, which is the easy case here.  Some of those arguing against the bill simply presume that the executive lacks the authority forcibly to shut down broadcasters in severe breach of the terms of their broadcasting licence, or whose activities present a severe threat to public order. That is nonsense. KASS broadcasts, for example, probably had a causal role in the PEV (see Waki). Just as there were compelling grounds to prohibit RTLM from broadcasting - the right to life trumps the right to free speech - there would have been compelling grounds to stop KASS from broadcasting.

So, anyway, the second argument. Suppose you concede that the government has the power to regulate speech, but you also think that that power may be exercised only in emergencies. You'd be misguided. The correct test, no I'm not going to argue for it here, for the regulation of speech is this: is it reasonable to believe that letting the speech be heard is likely to cause serious harm that cannot easily be remedied by more speech? Now, incitement fails that test, but there could be an incident of incitement without there being an accompanying emergency. Even if you don't like my test, you've got to admit that (serious) incitement is sufficient reason to regulate speech, but that it is not always accompanied by a (national) emergency. 

Both the popular arguments aimed at the Bill miss their mark. 

The problem with the bill (in this regard) isn't that it gives government the power to shut down media in national emergencies or whatever. That's a power government already possesses (probably). The difficulty is that it removes from the courts the power to determine whether the broadcaster ought to be shut down: it allows the minister to make that decision unilaterally, without giving the broadcaster his (yes they're all men) day in court. The cure is to require the Minister to get a court order before he can shut down a broadcaster.