• The outspoken Reverend said he sounded the alarm way before the Shakahola horror became public.
• “When you have political cultism, leaders who are politicians who are too strong and nobody can question them, that is the political cultism,” he said.
Image: FILE
Vocal Anglican Church Provost Sammy Wainaina has described Kenyans as a highly gullible lot that’s easily deceived by both politicians and rogue preachers.
The outspoken Reverend said he sounded the alarm way before the Shakahola horror became public that political and religious cultism had fused and were slowly establishing a stranglehold on Kenyans.
“When you have political cultism, leaders who are politicians who are too strong and nobody can question them, that is the political cultism,” he said.
“When you have pastors who are cultic and then you see the government that is cultic coming together with religious cultism, it’s poisonous, it’s dangerous for the people,” Wainaina said.
“Kenyans generally are very gullible people. Look at what politicians do to us, they cheat us so much, we believe them yet we know that what they are saying is not true. Politicians and religious leaders use the same tools to hoodwink us.”
The provost, who’s served for over two decades at the All Saints' Cathedral in Nairobi, was speaking on JKL Live on Wednesday night.
He said he has no doubt that politicians were involved in the Shakahola tragedy and supported calls for the formation of a commission of inquiry to unearth the truth.
“I will not be surprised that politicians were involved in this. How can you bury those kinds of people and the government doesn’t know?” he posed.
“There are many bad eggs in government, but there also many bad eggs in church as well,” he said.
The death toll in the Shakahola tragedy has surpassed 235 as the exhumation of bodies from shallow graves continues in the expansive forest in Kilifi County.
Malindi-based preacher Paul Mackenzie of Good News International Church has been accused of brainwashing his followers into believing they would meet Jesus if they starved to death.
Wainaina said it all boils down to twitching the scriptures and playing with the psychology of congregants for any preacher to attain the status of a cult.
How does one tell that they are dealing with a cultic preacher? Wainaina explained.
“When you look at the life of your pastor, if it doesn’t meet the average congregant, then there is a problem. You cannot have pastors and bishops living in opulence while their own followers live in poverty.”
He said it’s a red flag when a preacher sends his children to school and has his family well taken care of but he tells his followers not to avoid schools and starve to death.
This, he said, is happening only because Kenyans are extremely gullible and as such, rogue preachers who are doing that should take the blame for taking advantage of their followers’ faith.
“You create a craving, a thirst in people, they will do those things. I’m a pastor, if I wanted to twist something small, I have the psychology and that is what most pastors have done,” he said.
Reverend Sammy Wainaina is waiting to relocate to London where he has been posted to take the role of adviser on Anglican Communion Affairs.