How we used to make money from Kilifi cult victims- Riders

But three years later, he said, business started dwindling due to hostility

by The Star

News24 April 2023 - 13:20

In Summary

•He said one boda boda operator was attacked by people believed to be Mackenzie’s followers who were also acting as his security men.

•Last month, he said Mackenzie’s followers became more hostile, and that's when they became suspicious of what was happening in the forest.

Detectives from the Homicide Unit lay bodies of people believed to be followers of controversial pastor Paul Mackenzie in Shakahola Magarini as exhuming process entered day three on April 23, 2023.

Some boda boda riders in the remote village of Shakahola in Magarini, Kilifi County, have narrated how they used to make good money by ferrying hundreds of Pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie’s followers.

Business in the area started booming after Mackenzie closed down his Good News International (GNI) in Malindi in 2019 and settled on an 800-acre parcel of land in Shakahola.

This was 15 kilometres away from the Shakahola trading centre.

Because of the distance, most of his followers used to be carried on boda bodas after arriving in that village.

Papa Jeff, a resident of Shakahola, said business in the area was booming because of the many followers of the controversial preacher who would also flock shops to buy commodities.

“Even us, as boda boda operators, were making good money by ferrying them from the village to the trading centre,” he said.

But three years later, he said, businesses started dwindling after they were restricted from accessing the village.

"Early this year, they became hostile and started blocking boda boda from their settlements," he said.

He said one boda boda operator was attacked by people believed to be Mackenzie’s followers who were also acting as his security men.

Last month, he said Mackenzie’s followers became more hostile, and that's when they became suspicious of what was happening in the forest.

Jeff said the locals started protesting being blocked from using the access road within the vast forest, and that is when they noticed people had started dying.

“We began getting reports of malnourished people who were dying one by one,” he said.

Mackenzie, who is now in police custody in connection with the deaths of dozens believed to be his followers, bought the land from Mwabaya Mwaro Clan.

According to locals, Mackenzie had said he wanted to do farming on that vast land. Later, they started seeing his followers flocking into the area.

The police officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) homicide unit have been camping at that parcel of land since last week and exhumed more than 50 bodies from shallow graves.