Kenya Cultural Centre Council board chairman Kung’u Muigai admitted to being a founding member of the Mungiki gang after Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said politicians in Mount Kenya are reviving it.
“Not only that, when the crackdown on the Mungiki gang started in the Central region, we provided hideouts for their leader, Maina Njenga, and his followers in our vast lands and also recruited lawyers to defend them,” Mr. Muigai claimed in a live interview with Muoroto FM on Wednesday.
“When this group was created, I was in the thick of their lectures… The founders, Mr. Njenga and Ndura Waruinge, presented their Mungiki vision to the council of elders, and we agreed.
Mr. Muigai, the cousin of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, said he was depressed to see the gang resurrected following its whole cycle of reformation from a noble cause to a criminal group.
Mr. Gachagua warned more than 50 elected leaders during Archbishop Julius Njoroge’s farewell ceremony at the African Inland Pentecostal Churches of Africa (AIPCA) in Thika on Sunday that Mungiki was being resurrected for political ends.
“At its inception, it was not a criminal gang but a cultural purist organization that wanted the youth of the Agikuyu community to uphold good values and advocated that they should be non-smokers, teetotalers, well-groomed and morally upright,” Mr. Muigai said.
Stop trying to bring back the Mungiki we created together.
He stated the founders were so cultured “that men and women slept together on retreats and not a single pregnancy was reported because of the sexual discipline they practised”.
“Call Mr Njenga to deny that I, we… did not help him,” said Kiama Kia Ma Council of Elders patron Mr. Muigai. We supported him and his allies, providing hideouts and attorneys during the crackdown.
The council of elders urged him to find Mr. Njenga and warn him to cease his new plan on Mungiki. We will let the authorities demolish him because he is hurting our children.
Mr. Muigai said “it was former President Daniel Moi who introduced criminal elements into the sect when he sent intelligence officers to infiltrate it”.
Mr. Muigai claimed the Moi government’s mid-1990s incursion was to take over Mungiki and utilize it as a special purpose vehicle to acquire support in Mt. Kenya. After multiparty democracy in 1992, the area supported opposition politics, threatening Moi’s leadership.
He added “the government agents sent to Mungiki were the ones who introduced crimes such as extortion in the property and public transport sectors”.
He stated that when members scented these officials’ money-making plans, it became a free-for-all and the outfit became a vampire assembly.
He said the elders were astonished at what the group had become and began to separate themselves from the followers, withdrawing their support.
“When President Mwai Kibaki took power in 2002, he later sanctioned a crackdown on the sect in 2006 and the then Internal Security Minister John Michuki came down on them with an iron fist,” he added. Mr. Muigai.
Mr. Muigai lamented that Mungiki’s fist had struck so hard on the sect’s soul and skull that hundreds of adolescents had perished and others fled their homes to escape the deadly persecution.
“I agree with Gachagua that Mungiki is reorganizing… “I saw the youths who accompanied Mr. Njenga to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters when he was arrested for allegedly possessing firearms and bhang…” he claimed.
Mr. Muigai remarked “it was a sad sight to see the youths singing songs of freedom, war and liberation while invoking serious Mau Mau teachings…even when it was clear that they were just little boys whose fathers were nowhere near the freedom war”.
Mr. Muigai said “the time has come to say no to Mungiki and the elders will work with government forces to ensure that the gang does not make a comeback in the name of politics, culture or fun”.