The last word has to be that although it is not criminal to be stupid , the state has an obligation to ensure that a crazed and disillusioned minority do not impose their will on the whole population with impunity .
Not too far down the road , Shakahola happens and Kenyans are dealing with the horrible truth that Ida was right all along to call for a regulatory framework do deal with the uncontrolled increase in the number of churches .
Now that Shakahola has riveted our attention on all matters religion it is perhaps as good a time as any to not only come to terms with the fact that people will be people and are dangerously gullible but to institute some safeguards .
We are hearing politicians and the churches asking the government to deal with the cults and let the so-called bona fide churches to serve their congregants but who is going to define what a cult is without a regulatory benchmark .
If a Kenyan wishes to drive a vehicle , they do have to obtain a corresponding license and even after one has acquired the requisite license , regulatory bodies like NTSA and the Police do regularly ascertain whether one is acting within the agreed framework .
Since you cannot expect competing institutions to self-regulate as they are all chasing the same souls to save then it does make sense to create a mechanism to regulate the formation and the running of churches .
One certainly would not want to reach a position where anytime a person does not like another movement they brand it a cult and ask the government to investigate it . Regulation protects both the people and the bona fide institutions .
Ochieng would like to state that cults are not only found in religious settings as a further definition of a cult is a person or a thing that is popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of society .
It is correct to say that Steve Jobs had a cultic following among his Apple devices ’ consumers . How else would you explain why customers would sleep on an Apple Store ’ s sidewalk overnight just to be among the first to buy a new model in the market .
On a more sinister level so was Hitler a cultic leader which explains why a nation of intelligent and progressive people followed him like zombies to commit some of the most heinous crimes the world had ever seen in the name of nationalism .
Still on politics we have yet to recover from the American Trumpism where he launched a personalized attack on democracy and even cajoled a crazed cultic group of white
The last word has to be that although it is not criminal to be stupid , the state has an obligation to ensure that a crazed and disillusioned minority do not impose their will on the whole population with impunity .
extremists to storm Washington supposedly to reclaim their ‘ stolen ’ presidency .
That act of refusing to concede defeat in the eye of overwhelming evidence to the contrary spawned a new political sect of election deniers that the American public is still dealing with plus the toxic politics of a criminally braggadocio type who may still be president .
There are so many politicians who are not fit to hold public office in America who are in office because they espouse Trumpism and indeed many took office because he had overtly endorsed their candidature and many who lost because he castigated them .
One is tempted to question the sanity of the American people and ask why they were and are still willing to die for a miscreant who surprisingly got into office with the help of the Evangelicals , how does a professed Christian vote for a morally bankrupt criminal .
Ochieng would therefore like to remind Kenyans that Baba does have a cultic type of following among his constituents and Baba actually lost the presidency partly because of a huge number of voters who voted against Baba rather than for Zakayo .
There are many frustrated Luo politicians that would like to release the Luo Nation from the stranglehold that Baba has on the local politics and who have no chance of ascending to power without Baba ’ s endorsement .
The power of that hold on his constituency was again demonstrated when Kenya was subjected to weekly demonstrations called by Baba . He was supposedly protesting stolen elections which he had lost , appealed , lost again and had duly accepted .
The issue of cult following is so serious and has such far reaching consequences that it is important for people to face this threat to the principle of choice and freewill . Does a cult follower actually have freedom ?
If the answer is no , then do we have a case for state intervention whereby the leader that has such a following does not enjoy undue advantage over others ? It is clear that the ideal answer is not tidy and cannot be easily pigeonholed .
This also raises another fundamental question that if people vote emotionally in an otherwise rational democratic exercise , then perhaps democracy falls short of expectation as a determinant of the will of the people .
There is actually a very thin line between what happened in Shakahola and what Kenyans did at the elections . A politician calling for an investigation in Shakahola is a case of a sufuria calling a pot black .
The last word has to be that although it is not criminal to be stupid , the state has an obligation to ensure that a crazed and disillusioned minority do not impose their will on the whole population with impunity .
It is perhaps a good time to consider making voting imperative for any citizen over the age of eighteen as a civic duty to ensure that the minority do not get a chance to rule over the silent majority just because they can marshal a political wave which is a temporary cult .
As for the religious cults , Kenya can bury its head in the sand and hope Shakahola will deter extremists or take the bull by the horns and decide that since Kenya is a secular state then all religions allowed to practice must satisfy a minimum threshold .
As many religious institutions claim to be answerable only to God , then the government must divorce itself from direct religious pronouncements since nonadherents do not have access to appeal or remedy for what they disagree with .
It is sometimes difficult for politicians to remember that Kenya is not a theocracy but a democracy and although claimed Christians form the majority of the population it is not lost to many that labeling oneself as Christian does not bestow holiness or goodness in them .
There are a lot of wolves in snowy sheepskins out there - Kenyans beware !
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