If bishops want to wear sufurias on their heads, let them not hide behind tribal appointments
Anglican Church of Kenya led by Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit (centre) with other clergy members address journalists on the state of the nation and Anglican communion on May 10, 2023.
The hustler government wishes to inform the Anglican Church bishops who addressed the media this week that their tough-talking memo has landed on our desk; and Kenyans are about to see, between the church and the state, whose anger can boil their grandmother’s yams.
To say that the hustler government is shocked by the decision of our friends in the Anglican Church to lynch us in public is an understatement. We had thought Archbishop Jackson ole Sapit knows the direction to State House and we’ve taken care of him every time he’s come calling. When we were warned that Nairobi relationships are so fickle, never did we ever imagine that Archbishop Ole Sapit would join the list of fake friends so soon.
While our relationship advisers have incited us to send the Kenya Revenue Authority to check on the books of the Anglican Church in response to this lecture by their bishops, we have chosen to address them instead because hustlers have been accusing us of hiding behind state agencies to torment those who do not support us. For once, we shall retire from being called cowards by those who have never killed anyone’s dreams.
When the news first flashed on the hustler TV about a gathering by the Anglican church clergy, we had brushed it off because we knew our friends were about to play like themselves as they have been doing since we fell in love, at first sight, eight months ago inside the Bomas of Kenya auditorium.
We became alarmed when we noticed a scary change of tone in their voices only for the State House technician to assure us there was nothing wrong with the TV set we bought with taxpayer’s money. We wanted to know why the voice of the church had suddenly become hoarse towards the government, but health experts also assured us the aggression had nothing to do with the return of Covid-19.
The media reports were bleeping red hot at the celebrations that the church had finally found their voices to lecture the hustler government. Archbishop Ole Sapit and his advisers wanted to know why the hustler government has been making public appointments with a barometer filled with mother tongue instead of mercury. They went ahead to warn that this trend was heading into a slippery slope, and from the way it has been raining lately, we might find it difficult climbing back up to the gates of State House to wash off the mud.
We would not have had a problem had the lecture stopped there, but when someone accused us of violating the Constitution, it was time to switch off the gizmo and commission an inquest on who replaced our legal adviser with the Anglican Church of Kenya.
We now understand why the hustler government has been receiving complaints from the public that we have gone rogue. We had asked those in charge of sifting through the pile of emails to dismiss those allegations, but we are now recalling those letters. We’ll read all of them because it looks like the church has started mistaking our silence for a sponge.
Speak in tongues
They must know that no one, not even the President, can teach any public institution how to do their jobs. This is a constitutional imperative that requires all organs of government to operate without outside interference. Indeed, we can confirm that no one in the hustler government has signalled an intention to teach the church how to sprinkle anointing oil and speak in tongues, as we respect this separation of powers between the church and the state.
If the church now wants to diversify into teaching us how to conduct their affairs, we will also gatecrash the pulpit because they also need to be taught how to collect more tithe by making promises they don’t intend to keep.
A few facts to start us off. First, when Kenyans who genuinely meant well for this country vied for election last August, the Anglican Church did not present itself as a candidate. If the tithe Kenyans give them every Sunday now makes them think they can be the voice of their congregation, we can also add tithe to the tax proposals we’re presenting before Parliament so that they become genuine stakeholders in the fight for social justice, and join our competitors in the streets with metal cooking pots on their heads.
The Anglican Church also advises us to restore the trust deficit among Kenyans as these appointments have dented their reputation as an inclusive regime. We would like to inform the clergy and all their political supporters that the hustler government never asked for spiritual help on how to make hustlers happy because if we did we wouldn’t have won these elections. There is only one way to make hustlers happy, and we are going to write it in our books for them to find out what they already know.
As for the claim that there exists a lack of transparency and accountability in the criteria used to appoint shareholders to the government, we did not expect the church to know how the government appoints its people, because even the Anglican Church has never told us the criteria they use to elect their Archbishops.
We would have asked them why they subject their bishops to an election when we all know that servants of God are supposed to be chosen from heaven direct.
Even though we are still angered at their lecture, we shall not ask them difficult questions today, because we still remember how they saved us with prayers when agents of the devil threatened to clobber us with rudimentary weapons at the Bomas of Kenya that day we had gone to pick our certificate.
When we began this government-clergy relationship at the Bomas of Kenya eight months ago, we had hoped that our real friends would call us to a closed-door meeting and sprinkle anointing oil in our ears whenever there were indications they had been blocked from public concerns.
While we acknowledge that the church is currently facing tough times and tithe collections have dwindled to a trickle, we would like to remind the Anglican Church clergy that the hustler government has nothing to do with Kenyans running away from the Mother Church to go starve in faraway forests.
We want to warn the clergy that if they continue with this undeserved aggression towards those who were elected by God, the hustler government will consider introducing anger management tax in the Finance Bill 2023 because there’s nowhere in the Kenya Kwanza manifesto that we promised to be a punching bag for those itching to kick the devil out of Kenya.
