Our own gullibility invites politicians, con men, and charlatans to fleece us

Victor Kanyari during an interview in Nairobi on November 4, 2014. FILE PHOTO | DIANA NGILA |

What you need to know:

  • Kanyari is just one of the thousands of clever entrepreneurs who have found that an easy way to power and wealth is to exploit gullible Kenyans.
  • A warped and commercial brand of religion, the opiate of the masses, has truly captured Kenya and turned everyone into a zombie.

We have seen a national gnashing of teeth after the exposé on Pastor Prophet Dr Victor Kanyari’s money-minting scams under the guise of Christianity.

We have even heard that the Attorney-General has readied proposals for laws regulating religious institutions.

Attorney-General Githu Muigai should not bother with such laws. Needed more urgently are laws against stupidity and greed.

If adult Kenyans of presumably sound mind are forever throwing good money at all sorts of conmen, fraudsters and charlatans, then we need a collective mental examination.

Prophet Kanyari, or whatever title he goes by, is just one of the thousands of clever entrepreneurs who have found that an easy way to power and wealth is to exploit gullible Kenyans, who will happily and without coercion surrender all their money.

Kenya is awash with snake-oil salesmen under the guise of preachers, healers, herbalists and all kinds of fraudsters.

They promise to cure your cancer and Aids, multiply your wealth, transform your beer belly into a six-pack and your unshapely mass into 36-24-36, snare the hunk or beauty of your dreams, win you that job or promotion, capture that tender, ensure the desired examination results, and, of course, put the hex on your love or business rivals.

TURNED INTO ZOMBIES

A warped and commercial brand of religion, the opiate of the masses, has truly captured Kenya and turned everyone into a zombie.

It is followed closely by other brands of miracle workers in those ubiquitous Daktari wa Tanga (or whichever other exotic outposts) posters that besmirch every lamp post, proposing to banish your afflictions or make you wealthy.

We fall prey to those charlatans just as fast as we blow our life savings on pyramid schemes, red mercury, quail farming, or any other flavour of the month promising returns that would turn Pablo Escobar and other fabled narcotraficantes green with envy.

Pastor Kanyari is not doing anything out of the ordinary.

Self-proclaimed prophets, seers and healers running their own personal churches-cum-business empires are the norm in Kenya, courtesy of a foolish and greedy populace that fails to make the connection between its own poverty and the expensive lifestyle of the preachers.

From the outrage that has greeted revelations of Kanyari’s excesses, the temptation is to link that kind of blatant profiteering with the cultish, noisy, one-man or one-woman evangelicals and TV preachers.

Many commentators have proffered that the likes of Kanyari are just spoiling the “good” names of the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Adventist and other mainstream denominations.

ROYAL SPLENDOUR

Not true; they are just emulating best practice. The Church in Kenya remains one of the richest, most corrupt and least transparent institutions.

Massive land holdings and real estate keep the Church mute whenever there is mention of land reform or implementation of the Ndung’u Report on land grabbing.

Archbishops and bishops live in royal splendour in the choicest addresses and take their children, both official and “outgrowers”, to the most expensive schools locally and abroad, while poor and desperate parishioners toil to raise that unaudited church tax they call the tithe.

This gullibility is not limited to the faith and healing industry. The same way we willingly surrender our money to fraudsters reflects the same stupidity we exhibit in our politics.

ETHNIC KINGPINS

We will in our millions swear by some ethnic kingpins, but we will be completely oblivious of the fact that while we are cutting each other up with pangas and hurling angry insults across the fence on Facebook and Twitter, our rival warlords are sharing the national wealth among themselves amid great hilarity and copious gulps of the finest champagne at those exclusive hideaways they build to get away from the foolish hoi polloi.

Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga, William Ruto, Musalia Mudavadi, Gideon Moi and all the other ethnic kingpins and warlords will happily use us as expendable cannon fodder in their private battles for control of the national wealth.

At the end of the day, they are partners in crime. Outwardly, they may appear in vicious competition, but a look at any register of business in Kenya will reveal the interlinked interests going back to their fathers.

[email protected]. @MachariaGaitho