By James Wafula in Malindi.
Kenya President William Ruto has set up a commission of inquiry to probe the more than 100 people killed in the coastal Shakola mass graves but opposition leader Raila Odinga has criticized the government for blocking the media from the scene.
Odinga’s motorcade was on May 5, 2023 also blocked by police who have cordoned off the crime scene as port-mortem results showed that some of the victims were murdered and up eleven children strangled.
President Ruto has vowed stern action against the Good News International church led by Pastor Paul Mackenzie who is heavily funded by American radical churches with a leaning towards cultism through a “radical gospel” and another preacher Pastor Ezekiel Owuor who was arrested and released on bail.
Odinga claimed there was more than meets the eye from the government decision to bar members of the press from covering events at the grave sites where several bodies have been exhumed of skeleton figures believed to have starved to death in an attempt to emulate Jesus biblical fast of 40 days on Mount Sinai.
In a thinly veiled sarcastic attack on President Ruto, Odinga lambasted churches some of which held prayers at state house while he had been called a “mganga” (witch doctor)! “These are the same churches that have been congregating in high offices to pray for rain while some of us were branded and stigmatized” Odinga fumed as armed police blocked his convoy and refused to let him enter the forest.
Odinga has urged the government to stop violating the freedom of the media saying the country needed to know what exactly happened. Raila at one time claimed that state house was a “Shakahola crime scene” accusing evangelical preachers of leading faithfuls astray through radical gospel.
On You tube some American preachers were quoted urging followers in Malindi to do exactly what Jesus preached dismissing other churches of preaching “water while drinking wine”. It is from here that the Mackenzie church set up a camp in the forest where faithfuls went on a fast neither drinking water or eating in a bid “to meet with Jesus”!
Pastor Mackenzie and his wife did not fast and are now in police custody but the prosecution is battling to find charges that can stand with claims some of the dead were murdered.
The well connected Pastor Ezekiel who was among preachers who camped to “cleanse” state house on President Ruto being sworn in as 5th president, has paid a Kshs 3 million cash bail and is a free man awaiting mention of the case next month■
