A PRAYER BOYCOTT AGAINST KENYAN LEADERS

SUNDAY NATION
NAIROBI, KENYA
By MUTAHI NGUNYI
April 18 2009

As part of civil disobedience, I have stopped praying for Kenya. In fact, I want to invite the women of Kenya to join me. They pray too much. And who knows, maybe their prayers have sustained the country. But together, we can hold a ‘‘prayer boycott’’.

This may sound crazy, but allow me to explain.
One, our country has been hijacked. The two principals and their ‘‘gangs’’ are like Somali pirates. Self-seeking, greedy and dangerous.

If they disagree, they will collapse the country. If they do not, the country will collapse in 2012 anyway! Either way, we are hostage. To pray for our leaders, therefore, is like praying for pirates.

And because God is fair, He will shower the ‘‘pirate leaders’’ with blessings galore. Blessed and healthy ‘‘pirates’’ can only increase our misery. No wonder the country is captive, anxious and afraid.

My second reason is about President Mwai Kibaki. The old man suffers from the ‘‘Pharaoh Complex’’. He is stubborn, self-assured and deaf.

No amount of plagues, ranging from drought to the invasion of Migingo Island, will move him. And the more severe the plague, the harder his heart gets.

But he has a crack on the wall. Like Pharaoh who gave up when his son was killed, President Kibaki loves himself. Anything touching on his family causes him to jump. And this is where our prayers should target.

Instead of praying for good health and long life, our women ‘‘prayer warriors’’should pray for the following: that he experiences the pain of IDPs, the loss felt by the bereaved, and the horror we feel when we think of the burning Eldoret church.

And that this experience is personal, painful and real. This way, he will have compassion. In fact, he will see the IDPs not as a political problem, but as a human problem. In sum, the women of Israel did not pray for Pharaoh; they prayed for liberation. Our women should do likewise.

The other group I want to invite to the ‘‘prayer boycott’’ is the House of Religious Leaders. This is a tall order, but I will try. In my attempt, I am inspired by the “Stuttgart Confession of Guilt”.

This was a public acknowledgement of guilt by the German churches over the Nazi killings. As Hitler led them to war and collapse, the religious leaders did nothing. In fact, they prayed for him as we do our ‘‘pirate leaders’’.

Like the church in Rwanda, they discovered too late that they had been used. Nothing illustrates this tragedy better than the experience of one priest, jailed in 1937 by Hitler. His name was Martin Niemoller, a man of modest means.

He kept quiet because Hitler, like President Kibaki, did not like his prophetic voice. Then he was charged with treason for saying that some people were ‘‘moribund and others were ineffective’’.

While languishing in jail, he wrote the following famous lines: “… They came for the communist, and I did not speak against them because I was not a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me.

And by that time, no one was left to speak up for me!” If the testimonies from Germany and Rwanda are anything to go by, our religious leaders have no choice but to speak out. Apart from the ‘‘prayer boycott’’, they should also ignore the President’s attack this week.

In fact, they should ask him to repent for the chaos of January 2008.
My third reason regards the lie of the coalition government. I cannot ‘‘pray’’ for a government built on a lie. Prayer, as my Sunday school teacher taught me, is “… willing for something to happen”.

And if the coalition is based on a lie, I cannot will for it to succeed. More so because the President has short-changed ODM the way he botched the 2002 MoU between his party and Mr Raila Odinga.

If my Sunday school teacher was right, praying for such deceit is actually a sin! This is why I would want the ODM politicians to join the ‘‘prayer boycott’’ as well. But there is a hitch here. ODM politicians remind me of a story told by Nigerians about General Sani Abacha, the most ruthless military leader in Nigeria.

This man could not be assassinated or removed from power. In fact, he was meant to live forever. Unfortunately, he took too much Viagra one fateful night.

In the comfort of some Asian girls, he succumbed to a heart attack. And then he presented himself at the Pearly Gates of heaven in full military regalia.

On checking the records, Saint Peter told him that the last record they had of him was when he was eight. They had no idea where he had disappeared to after that. He therefore advised him to check with Lucifer downstairs.

When he arrived in hell, the gate man ran away. Thirty minutes later, a fully armed battalion arrived at the gate, securing all entrances.

A quick SMS was sent to Lucifer in his quarters informing him that General Sani Abacha had arrived. Lucifer threw a tantrum saying “there can only be one Lucifer in hell, ask him to seek residence elsewhere.” His soul is still at large!

Saint Peter
My point? Maybe Saint Peter, up there, has no record of the ODM politicians. And to ask them to join in a ‘‘prayer boycott’’ is, at best, laughable. However, if prayer is “… willing for something to happen”, we can recruit them in the boycott.

If they stopped ‘‘willing’’ for a deceitful coalition to succeed, a solution can be at hand. But can they? Can they say no to the fact that they were cheated and demand their rightful entitlement?

And can they do so by foregoing their current positions? If they do, the ‘‘prayer boycott’’ will be complete!