Premium

Dini ya Roho ya Mafuta Pole ya Africa has survived over 70 years of turmoil

Dini ya Roho Mafuta Pole ya Africa Church at Sook area in Kapenguria, West Pokot on November 3, 2021.[Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

They came on road and by air. With the fingers on the trigger, they watched the crowd swell.

Their mission was simply to swoop down, grab the tailor and leave. But just in case things did not go according to plan, they had called for reinforcement from as far as Nakuru.

And then something went horribly wrong. The followers charged and some accounts later claimed that followers of the tailor-turned prophet, Lucas Pkiech, attacked the colonial troops and killed three white police officers.

Then the bullets that residents of Nginyang, Kerio Valley had been told would turn into the water on encountering the adherents of Dini Ya Msambwa mowed them in their hundreds.

By the time the madness subsided, history had been written in blood, the Kollowa Massacre created and Kenya’s freedom struggle had a new martyr, Pkiech.

For more than two years, the prophet who had been inspired by Elijah Masinde had been on the run after he bolted out of a labour camp in Gilgil on July 21, 1949, and trekked to Kapenguria. Along the way, he had encountered admirers and even secured his third wife, Chemosop.

Pkiech had won thousands of followers by prophesying about liberation from all earthly oppression, including State brutality, forced labour by the colonial government, which had limited the community and its livestock to West Pokot from ever venturing out without the white man’s permission.

Erling Lundeby, a researcher, wrote in an article, Lucas Pkiech: A violent political leader or a Christian Spiritual leader: Lucas was positively identified among the dead, but it is unclear what happened to his body. 

Although his wife, Chemosop, escaped the bloodletting, she was ruthlessly pursued to Cherangany and arrested. She died in police custody.

Thousands of Pkiech’s followers were arrested, jailed and others detained. Up to 10 were hanged and the entire community collectively fined 5,000 head of cattle.

Still, these freedom fighters did not give up, for Pkiech’s successor, Rosti Lakuny, gathered the scattered followers and renamed the sect "Dini ya Roho ya Mafuta Pole ya Africa”.

The sect has survived more than 70 years of turmoil. Its leaders and followers have been largely ignored when the history of those who fought for Kenya’s liberation is recorded. They remain the unsung and the pacesetters of kangaroo political trials in Kapenguria.