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Journalist’s Chilling Encounter With Mungiki, Police
More articles on this topic: MungikiWhat began as a harmless traditional religious grouping a decade ago has evolved into an evil, destructive and multi-faceted monster.
The Mungiki, (loosely translated to mean a multitude of people), has become Kenya’s worst nightmare. It has unleashed terror, pain and suffering on innocent people – beheading, killing and maiming those in its path.
Unfortunately, security forces appear unable to contain the marauding monster.
Reading about these things, I have been greatly disturbed but not entirely surprised, because the sect has from the very beginning identified itself with anything bordering on anarchy.
I cannot help but wonder whether we, the media, have helped create the Mungiki monster, fuelling and tending the myths that have turned the sect into a formidable cult.
The sect has the hallmarks of a cult. Like a cult, it is centred on an individual, its inner details are shrouded in secrecy and recruits are forced to take an oath. Those who stray or divulge secrets of the sect face dire consequences.
Preparing to take over government
When I first came across the group in 1998, it was a little known association of disgruntled young people, fronted by a fast talking but low profile individual known as Kimani Ruo, a short, rotund, brown man, who spoke with a stutter, and claimed to be a former journalist. I gathered he was a stringer based in Nakuru.
When I met him, he liked hanging around journalists and he would often rant and rave about Mungiki, a movement, similar to the infamous Mwakenya that he said was preparing to take over government and reclaim the supremacy of the Gikuyu people.
He said the group, whose leaders were invisible but powerful people, some in Government, was recruiting hundreds of youths – both men and women – who when the time was right, would emerge to take control of the Bururii (nation).
He said these people were training in combat and would stop at nothing to take what rightfully belonged to them.
He said the youth, especially those from Central and Eastern Kenya had been disinherited by the system. That even the highly educated were roaming the streets without jobs, while those who never fought for independence were enjoying the fruits.
Incidentally, the sect identifies itself with the fallen heroes of the liberation struggle like Dedan Kimathi, composing and singing songs to venerate the legends.
The sect is deeply spiritual
Unaware that Ruo meant business, I and some other journalists dismissed him as a mad man. In retrospect, I recall, there was a lot of talk in Nakuru town and its environs about the sect, whose trademark is dreadlocked tobacco- sniffing young men, who carry staffs and speak like old men.
They also advocated for the circumcision of women. They were mistakenly linked to a similar grouping led by the late Ngonya wa Gakonya known as Thaai.
It was not until 2000 that I began to see the real picture, when Ndura Waruinge, a young university graduate appeared on the scene.
He claimed to be the sect’s publicity secretary and addressed press conferences, mainly denying Mungiki’s association with anarchy. He enticed and befriended journalists to get publicity. I was one of those he befriended.
I had met him at the home of former Molo MP, the late Kihika Kimani, in the company of another young man, Maina Njenga, whom Waruinge introduced as the leader of the sect.
He likened him to the Son of God, Jesus or Moses, and said Maina was the son of the founder and spiritual leader of the sect. The elder Maina wa Njenga was also called Kamunya.
The younger Maina, also a university graduate, said he was the sect’s strategist and the one chosen by God and his father to liberate the Gikuyu people.
The sect, I found out, was deeply spiritual. The members prostrated themselves on the ground facing Mt Kenya and prayed to the God of Kirinyaga, chanting, thaai, thaathaya Ngai, thaai, (Hail God, hail God) whenever they gathered. They also composed and sang moving praise and lamentation songs.
Mungiki Islam connection
Waruinge, being handsome and the most eloquent, was a favourite of the media. I interviewed him for Citizen Television, when he adopted the Muslim name, Ibrahim, and donned the cap, normally worn by Muslims.
Asked why he had changed his name, Waruinge attempted to relate Mungiki’s way of doing things to that of the Muslims. He cited among other things the fact that just like the Muslim prayed facing Mecca, the sect followers prayed facing Mt Kenya.
Just like the Muslims were prepared to die for their faith, the Mungiki would not, he said, hesitate to defend what they believed in.
He further likened the leaders of the sect, most of whom operated undercover, to notorious Al Qaeda, leader Osama bin Laden. But I got the feeling he was doing this for effect; he wanted to instill fear and terror.
Asked then what enemy or what cause the Mungiki was fighting for, Waruinge said, but not in exact words, that the Moi Government was the enemy. The Government, he said, had impoverished people and was particularly targeting jobless desperate Kikuyu youth.
He said the Mungiki was growing in might and wealth. That it had succeeded in pulling powerful politicians and wealthy individuals into their fold. Influential people were fronted as some of those who supported and funded the sect.
Face-to-face with the ugly side of the sect
I recall an incident at home in Ngong, where I happened upon Waruinge, Maina and another man driving in a nice car. They stopped where I was and invited me for a drive. My initial reaction was fear.
I was afraid because I had been warned that the sect was intent on recruiting high profile women like journalists. That the first thing I would have to do to become a bona fide member was to be circumcised, forcibly or otherwise, and then take an oath.
The source told me it was a taboo for sect members to associate with uncircumcised women, called iriigu.
But the journalist bug prevailed because instead of fleeing, I sat and talked with them at length. They claimed to be staying in the home of a former MP and boasted of large sums of money and cars.
My curiosity heightened, I wanted to know how they made the money and what dealings the MP had with the sect.
They claimed the MP was one of their many financial backers and had given them free reign of his home, to use whenever they were in town. They also said the sect, through its members, owned huge tracts of land in Molo and Njoro among other areas where they grew crops for sale.
But in mid 2000, I came face-to-face with the ugly side of the sect when on an assignment for Citizen TV. In the company of a well-known Nairobi pharmacist, among other people, I travelled to Nyahururu to cover a much-publicised Mungiki ceremony.
The ceremony was anticipated to attract a large number of prominent persons, human rights lawyers, politicians and culture enthusiasts.
The pharmacist, a self-confessed culture enthusiast, was to film the ceremony and enrich his collection of cultural artefacts.
The ceremony, I had been informed by the assigning editor, would start at dawn on Saturday morning. So we travelled at night, reaching Kinamba trading centre, Ng’arua division in Laikipia District (now Laikipia West District) just before dawn.
We found hundreds of people assembled at the home of the elder Maina wa Njenga – an equivalent of the holy place for the Mungiki, in the interior of Nyahururu.
A battery of journalists, both local and foreign were also there. The ceremony was on because I could hear chanting of Thaai thaai thathaiya Ngai thaai, and the smell of roast meat in the air.
The large crowd made it impossible to see how the homestead looked like or reach the place where the ceremony was taking place.
So I stood on the outer side of the crowd, with a sense of anti-climax, because I had been looking forward to a spectacular show of how the Gikuyu conducted their sacrifices to the God of Kirinyaga or Mwene Nyaga.
As the ceremony went on, women served tea and the journalists clicked away on their cameras. I remember making mental notes of the interview I hoped to have with the sect’s spiritual leader. Waruinge had promised he would organise the interview.
Detained
I was excited about covering a big story and could just see the spectacular visuals I would use for the piece. Little did I know that I would be making headlines but not in the manner I had envisaged.
It happened like a scene from the movies. The police descended on the gathering by the truckloads, catching everyone unawares and sending the crowd scattering in all directions.
In the ensuing melee, police in combat gear, threw tear gas and fired live bullets into the crowd.
I, like everyone else, ran for dear life, dodging bullets. I remember, a tear gas canister landing on a man running beside me, before exploding right in my face, blinding and chocking me.
I remember lying down on the grass and trying to clear my eyes and throat, when someone graciously handed me a wet handkerchief.
When the smog cleared, we were surrounded. There were cops all around and some could be seen viciously battering some young men, already in handcuffs. There were also people bleeding and writhing in pain on the ground.
I was bleeding on the legs and arms. I remember looking around in horror and seeing the empty shells of the bullets that had been fired, and the bruises on the surrounding trees. I prayed and hoped that no one had been killed.
In a moment of brevity or foolishness, I picked up a few shells and hid them in my pocket; they would be used as evidence against the police for opening fire upon a peaceful and unarmed gathering, so I thought.
Ironically, it was me and not the police who stood before the court days later, accused of being a member of a proscribed sect and participating in an illegal assembly.
The police clobbered anyone who attempted to get away. They ordered everyone to lie down and stretch out their hands. My heart in my mouth, I defied that order and bravely approached the senior most officer I could see, telling myself that I was not part of what was going on but a journalist in the line of duty. I was confident that my press card would let me through the dragnet. I was wrong.
A few brave but shaky steps ahead, a gun totting cop thrust a rifle in my face and barked the order, “Wee! simama! Mikono juu (You stop. Hands up)!”
I raised my hands holding the press card as I walked ahead. I was determined not to become a statistic among those who disappeared in detention. I told myself I had to get out and tell the story.
But I was not so lucky. A few more steps and a rough cop grabbed me from behind and frog-matched me to a truck – the dreaded ‘mariamu’. He ignored my pleas to speak to the OCS, shouting “Nyamaza! Utasema mbele (Quiet. You’ll talk later)!”
And so I remained silent as others, some bleeding profusely, were loaded onto the truck and transported to the local police station.
There were dozens of people, lying prostrate on the ground, spread like a carpet throughout the compound, and inside the little office.
Nightmare
A mean faced man, whom I discovered was the OCS, sat on a wooden rickety chair. My attempts to explain why I should not be detained fell on deaf years. He ordered that we all be detained in the holding cell until further notice.
The nightmare had just begun. The cell was pitch dark and reeked of urine and faeces and unwashed bodies. I imagined all sorts of crawly things, slithering in the dark and I was really scared.
For the first time I felt my resolve was beginning to crumble. I was afraid I would never come out.
To my horror, I discovered I was the only woman among a hundred or so Mungiki men. I thought of murderers and rapists. The thought of falling asleep was frightening. So I said I would take the furthest corner, and remain alert. But after the day’s ordeal, keeping my eyes open was a tall order.
The only consolation, I could see a few familiar faces, one belonged to the pharmacist, the rest were members of the sect.
I chose to put my life in the pharmacist’s hands and told him so. Not that he was in any shape to protect anyone, having been badly beaten and his camera broken, but he was a consolation nevertheless.
We remained in the cells for four days, without any outside interaction. Our pleas to be allowed to call anyone fell on deaf ears.
Occasionally, a mean cop would peep from a small hole in the door and call out someone to receive some cigarettes, bread or drink. I puffed away the cigarettes and some energy that the pharmacist and I shared.
Besides the darkness and an awful smell, the cell was fully packed. There was barely room to sit or stand, let alone sleep. People had devised a system where we all slept stacked up like sardines in a tin, from one wall of the cell to the other. We also faced one direction, to maximise on space, turning only when inevitable.
I slept in fits, bracing myself for any moment when some pervert would pounce on me or a big rat would bite my leg. Luckily, that moment never came.
It was while in the cells awaiting our fate that I spoke at length with some members of the sect. Many admitted to being members but refuted allegations of oath taking, female circumcision and the sect’s affinity to violence.
They all agreed, however, that the finer details of the sect and what goes on inside could not be divulged to non- members. It emerged that the members were ranked in seniority, where certain things considered sensitive, remained known only to the leaders.
I got to learn the sect worked towards achieving a puritanical and traditional way of life. Sect members lived in communes, some of which were in Mukuru kwa Njenga, Mathare Valley and Korogocho.
Life in these communes, they said, was normal. But men and women were somehow segregated and men enjoyed a free reign over the womenfolk. The men could eat and sleep wherever they liked, provided they were within the same group.
Asked how the children of the communes were socialised, I learnt that they were taught by appointed teachers, the traditions and customs of the Agikuyu.
But to what end were they creating their own different kind of life? No one could give a definite answer. But they lamented how life was full of evil and that people should go back to their roots to avoid destruction.
None among those I talked to spoke of politics or violence, they maintained theirs was a traditional, religious grouping, whose freedom was being curtailed.
But I had a sneaky feeling they did not know exactly what they were involved in. They were, so to speak, the sacrificial lambs used by the architects of the sect.
This is because the sect leaders, who had previously claimed to be fearless and ready to fight for what they believed in, disappeared at the slightest sign of trouble.
When we were not talking, we sang Mungiki songs. The songs were mainly lamentations, decrying the suffering of the Kikuyu nation, and asked the god of Kirinyaga to come down and rescue them.
Of course, there was the passing around of the small black gourd, containing tobacco and the sharing of the contents. This I declined, choosing instead to console myself with the occasional cigarette.
When the day came for us to appear in court, I was sick and tired of being treated like a common criminal. I was determined to sue the State for wrongful detention.
But I was in for a surprise. On the trip to court and in the courtyard, a heavy police presence prevented us from even getting close to fellow journalists and sympathisers who lined the cordon fence to catch a glimpse of the notorious Mungiki adherents.
In court, we could not plead because of the usual technical legal hitches and were remanded in custody, and this time transferred to the Nyahururu Remand Prison.
I could not imagine spending another day in jail for a crime I had not committed. But there was no other way I was told, because the judge had spoken. If I could last just a few more days, a lawyer, sent to represent me by the company I worked for said, I would soon be free. Only, I had to go to remand first before all that could be arranged. So off we went to the Nyahururu prison.
The remand prison made the police cells look like a picnic. The humiliation I suffered at the hands of prison warders took a toll on me.
The system was intended to denigrate all prisoners such that, they would have no self-esteem left when they walked out.
The warders made me and the other women strip as they scrutinised us from all angles and made snide remarks about whether or not we were circumcised.
When I appeared before the court, accused No. 54, I pleaded not guilty and was discharged on all charges.
Up to date I have not received any form of acknowledgement from the State or otherwise, that I was wrongfully detained for two weeks.
But I have not given up. One day I will have my day in court, I will be on the prosecution’s side against the law enforcers.
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