Former police officer Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier, leader of the 'G9' gang alliance, flanked by fellow gang members in Port-au-Prince on March 5, 2024.
It is a striking paradox: Kenya has deployed yet another contingent of its police force to Haiti, to confront Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier’s network of gangs – which are similar to the infamous Mungiki which we seem to embrace for political convenience.
Once upon a time, in Kenya’s history of gangs, Mungiki plunged Central Kenya, Nairobi and Nakuru into untold pain as the extortionist gangs seemed to control the various economic sectors by demanding protection fee. Under Maina Njenga, they controlled the Matatu industry, constructions sites, quarries, and even the Dandora dumping site. Landlords had to pay protection fee and tenants were not spared.
The same can be said of Cherizier’s Haiti gang said to engage in “barbarous acts of rapes, extortion, kidnapping, blackmail and killings”, according to Voice of America. In essence, they have made the troubled Caribbean nation almost ungovernable – and Kenya seeks to help end the chaos.
The irony is that as we try to tame Cherizier’s gangs in Haiti, the William Ruto government appears to turn a blind eye on Mungiki, in all its guises, by offering Maina Njenga and his followers a new platform to entrench their influence in the Mt Kenya region. As scholars argue, and rightly so, there exists an interconnected triangle – government, elites, and gangs – in which these groups either collaborate or oppose one another.
Just last week, Pastor Dorcas Rigathi, former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s wife, was forced to flee a prayer meeting after Njenga brazenly disrupted the ceremony and took charge as guest of honour. Police stood by as silent spectators to the chaos.
Such moments lay bare the troubling contradictions in Kenya’s stance: while the nation pledges to battle gang leaders abroad under the UN banner, it seems unwilling – or unable – to confront them within its own borders.
If we are truly against the rise of gang leaders and their toxic influence, then charity must begin at home. A principled stand against such figures cannot be exported while turning a blind eye to the rot festering within our borders. The fight for justice and order must be unwavering, both at home and abroad.
By all accounts, Cherizier mirrors Njenga in many unsettling ways. Much like Njenga, whose tumultuous journey from gang leader to political insider has been marked by a complex mix of notoriety and influence, Barbecue wields his shadowy past to position himself as a powerful player in Haiti. Both figures now operate in the murky overlap of criminal enterprise and political ambition, navigating the corridors of power with ease, their pasts no hindrance to their present.
Mungiki, in whatever form it has evolved, remains a disruptor of public order, a specter that haunts Kenya's socio-political landscape. And Njenga, despite his professed conversion to Christianity, continues to be the emblematic figure of its current iterations.
Meanwhile, in Haiti, Cherizier plays a disturbingly parallel role. He claims to champion Haiti’s downtrodden masses against a corrupt and ineffectual government, his dark and violent past conveniently reframed as a badge of resistance. Like in Kenya, Haiti’s gangs are closely associated with politicians, political parties, businessmen or other so-called “elites” in the country.
The current dalliance perceived between Njenga and the government (and previously the opposition), is oblivious to the potential dangers posed by his sect's followers.
By allowing such visibility and legitimacy, the State risks empowering a movement that could challenge law and order, undermine national cohesion, and escalate tensions. It has happened before, and it could happen again. The Churches have said as much but our politicos are not realising the dangers.
What adds an intriguing layer of complexity is how Njenga and Cherizier invoke historical icons to legitimise their agendas. Njenga frequently references the names of Kenya's revered Mau Mau freedom fighters – Dedan Kimathi, General China, and Stanley Mathenge – equating his struggle to their valiant quest for liberation.
Across the Atlantic, Cherizier adopts a similar rhetorical strategy. He portrays himself as a God-fearing Caribbean Robin Hood, and cites Che Guevara and Martin Luther King Jr as his inspirations. Thus, Barbecue’s self-styling as a revolutionary saviour echoes Njenga’s audacity to claim that he once rose from the dead. Again, both seek to obscure their sordid pasts with the pseudo-mantle of heroism.
For the last two years, Njenga hobnobbed with opposition politicians and was part of the short-lived Kamwene outfit in Central Kenya. He was also a political ally of Raila Odinga, who has mastered the art of bargaining power after the fact. By then Njenga was fighting a court case in Nakuru.
But shortly after the Director of Public Prosecution withdrew the case, for want of witnesses, and in an about-turn, Njenga jumped ship and entrenched himself within President Ruto's Kenya Kwanza fraternity, spearheading a calculated campaign to undermine former deputy president Rigathi Gachagua’s influence in the Mount Kenya region.
He accuses Gachagua of tormenting him when he was deputy president and now seeks to rally his followers to support Kenya Kwanza. With ambitions to deflate the former deputy president’s political stature, Njenga is capitalising on Gachagua’s fall from grace and is rallying the support of a political establishment eager to solidify the latter’s political demise.
This strategic manoeuvring aims to redraw the political landscape of the region, crafting a narrative that cements Gachagua’s political grave with precision and finesse. If Maina Njenga reincarnates Mungiki, it will be with the support of a regime that purports to fight similar gangs in Haiti.
But it will not be the first time that Mungiki sect would have prospered with the support of powerful forces. It rose to prominence under President Daniel Moi's calculated courting of Maina Njenga, and he is on record saying that he used to regularly have meetings with the Moi in Kabarak.
In Haiti, the notorious gangs of Haiti found their genesis during the brutal reign of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Over the course of their 29-year dictatorship, the Duvaliers not only consolidated power but also unleashed the dreaded Tontons Macoutes, a paramilitary brigade whose very name evoked fear.
This shadowy militia became the iron fist of the Duvalier regime, ruthlessly stamping out dissent while indulging in widespread extortion, torture, and the massacre of thousands. The Tontons Macoutes were more than just enforcers; they were an instrument of terror, operating with impunity as they safeguarded the Duvaliers’ authoritarian grip on Haiti.
Their actions left a legacy of trauma and lawlessness, paving the way for the rise of modern gangs that continue to plague the country, just as Moi’s political patronage of Njenga provided fertile ground for Mungiki to entrench itself in Kenya’s socio-political fabric. Were it not for John Michuki, who slowed down Mungiki and had Maina Njenga incarcerated, the group would have by now grown into a ruthless extortionist gang.
In Haiti, Jimmy Cherizier cites the Duvaliers as his icons and worked in police service – an institution where the lines between gangsterism and keeping order are blurred. The same happened with Mungiki which had a history of impunity.
Njenga claims to seek to "liberate" and "empower" the youth, vowing to campaign for President Ruto while opposing Gachagua.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with his political choices, his reliance on the Mungiki-style tactics of the past risks creating widespread disharmony. It is paradoxical that, while ostensibly condemning Jimmy Cherizier’s methods in Haiti, we are silently witnessing the rise of a similar figure at home.
[email protected], On X: @johnkamau1
