Kenya is gloriously on the world news map. Gloriously because, however bad the news is, and it is terrible, many people across the world will Google Kenya. They will seek to know where the country is, who its president is, what happens there and why is a pastor being accused of leading many of his followers to death. And so, out of death shall be born good news for Kenya.
But the tragedy of the deaths in a forest in Kilifi will just amplify the shadow of doubt that stalks the country’s image. Many will wonder how tens of Kenyans can be sent to their early graves in the 21st century, all in the name of seeking glory in heaven. But in a country where millions search for miracles every day, is this story of the supposed cult leader leading his followers to heaven strange?
There is nothing eccentric in the deaths that are being reported in the media. Why are Kenyan journalists surprised that tens of Kenyans starved to death and were silently buried in a forest in country with a seemingly ‘robust media’, as some analysts are wont to say about our press? How did this church with strange beliefs and practices, whose consequences have been fatal, thrive when the country’s security and intelligence services are supposed to be among the best in the region? Or, as some Kenyans have commented, how gullible are people, such that they could be led to believe that earthly possessions as well as life are meaningless?
We have asked on these pages before: What happened to investigative journalism? Is it that journalists are no longer nosy or is the internet so captive that editors prefer getting their news from social media and other sources to investing in researching stories?
Or, let’s put it this way: How could this story have escaped the attention of all the major – and minor – newsrooms in Nairobi and around the country? How could even those ‘nosier’ social media reporters not smell it? How were the deaths so hidden that more Kenyans travelled hundreds of kilometres to present themselves to the cult? If the death camp was in a forest, its administrators must have been in touch with the rest of the world. They must have had phone contact with people outside the forest, bought groceries and other goods to use, and directed new members of the cult to its station in the forest.
Something smelly there. Something doesn’t add up. There are too many people who have several questions to answer. However, to use a cliché, this is Kenya; and those responsible for this madness and deaths will walk away with hardly a warning. But there will be a warning to the rest of Kenyans: That this is a very familiar story.
This is a story that is found on Kenyan TV every Saturday and Sunday, and on other TV channels owned by preachers. Didn’t the accused preachers own TV stations? These so-called prophets harangue Kenyans every weekend, threatening damnation, and all manner of suffering if they don’t pay tithe or worship God in the prescribed manner. The men and women of the cloth warn Kenyans of immeasurable suffering if they don’t mend their ways and separate pretenders from the true servants of God and His people. But servants don’t become overlords overnight the way Kenyan preachers tend to change.
The warning to the media fraternity is that we are deeply slumbering whilst news happens. To put this story into context, there was reported starvation in parts of this country in the past six or so months. Did the media ever seek to count the numbers? How many Kenyans died directly and indirectly when the rains failed? How many people have died this year in road accidents? How many mothers have died this year due to pregnancy or whilst giving birth? How many victims of domestic violence have died so far this year? What about those who have died by suicide?
The point for media practitioners in Kenya is to sharpen our noses more than activate our fingers to tap at the phone keys looking for the latest online gossip. There is news out there that needs to be disseminated to Kenyans, urgently. Shakahola forest deaths should have been sniffed out and reported a long time ago. How ironic that as some Kenyans have been dying from hunger that is beyond their control, other Kenyans have been shepherded into starving to death, supposedly to go to heaven. How ironic that Kenya’s media missed this obvious and ordinary story.
