“We’re not paying any attention to such a declaration,” Mr. Lone said.

Earlier in the day, police officers and officials from the Communications Authority of Kenya descended on a broadcast transmission station in Limuru, about 18 miles outside Nairobi, the capital, and disconnected broadcasting equipment, according to Linus Kaikai, the chairman of the Kenya Editors Guild and the general manager of the television division at Nation Media Group, which owns NTV, one of the three channels disconnected.

Mr. Kaikai said that the authorities had disabled the equipment shortly before 9 a.m. “There was no explanation given,” he said.

Repeated calls to multiple officials at the Communications Authority were not returned.

The television blackout and the criminal designation seemed to add legitimacy to Mr. Odinga’s oath, which some observers had earlier dismissed as political theater.

“We’ve urged them to ignore it, to downplay it,” said one Western diplomat, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. “It has no legal or practical effect, so the best solution here would be to just ignore the entire thing. But they’re not doing that.”

Mr. Njoka, the Interior Ministry spokesman, described the oath as an assault on legitimate government. He also said the government had “good reasons” for interrupting television broadcasts of the gathering.

“The government had to do what it did because the lives of Kenyans are more important than what you call freedom of the press or what might turn out to be an inciting broadcast,” he said.