Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga has claimed that the government is attempting to recreate the outlawed Mungiki sect in Mt Kenya region.
Addressing the media on Monday, June 5, 2023,Raila alleged that the government will use the move to isolate youth from the Mt Kenya region.
“It is so unfortunate that in this time and age when Kenya has now celebrated its 60th year of independence, somebody should try to use the same tactics and methods used by the British to try and isolate youth from the Central region. There is an attempt to artificially recreate, and reestablish the Mungiki movement,” Raila said.
The former Prime Minister linked the recreation to the recent arrest of former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga.
“Maina Njenga has since been vilified and harassed, they have carried out searches in his residences, planting some kind of evidence to try to vilify him and find an excuse to arrest him and detain him,” he added.
Narck Kenya Party leader Martha Karua also criticized the government’s claims of Mungiki resurgence, viewing it as an attempt to justify violence against Mt. Kenya youth.
“We are seeing the profiling of Mt Kenya youth as Mungiki which amounts to an attempt by the regime to create an artificial crisis to justify violence against innocent youth from the mountain. It is our position that profiling of Mt Kenya youth will not solve the problems facing this regime. It will only derail the healing process,” said Karua.
Interior CS Kithure Kindiki on Sunday last week warned that there could be a resurgence of the Mungiki sect without giving much details.
“In the past, Mt. Kenya region and other parts of our country have suffered deeply from proscribed groupings such as Mungiki. Political leaders who are trying to revive this illegal group will not be allowed or entertained,” Kindiki said.
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