Stop polarising the nation, church leaders tell Uhuru, Ruto
Church leaders from Nyeri County who are under the NCCK during a press briefing on March 30, 2022. They urged resident Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William to tone down their political rhetoric to avoid polarising the country.
Church leaders in Nyeri have called on President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto to resolve their political differences and stop attacks on one another for the sake of the existing peace in the country, saying their exchanges are polarising the masses.
Speaking under the umbrella of the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), the leaders said that differences between the two are personal and should not be passed on to Kenyans who deserve peaceful elections in August.
"As church leaders, it is our considered opinion that differences between the duo are of personal nature and with that we wonder why Kenyans are being involved. They should not polarise the nation," Rev Cannon Joseph Njakai of the Anglican Church of Kenya said.
Rev Njakai said the reason that they are terming the differences as personal is due to the fact that the church has tried to reconcile them but to no avail.
Remain neutral
The leaders’ spokesperson, Rev Simon Njoroge, said the church will remain neutral in regard to the politics of the day, but will give politicians a platform to sell their manifesto.
"We will allow politicians inside our churches. However, we will not give them opportunity to divide communities or incite youth to violence," he said, while urging youth to shun any calls to violence and destruction of property, noting that the future must be safeguarded.
The church leaders asked the Jubilee government to address the skyrocketing prices of food, saying that greed and corruption is the reason why most of essential commodities are way above most Kenyans’ reach.
“Even when factors external to our country are blamed for those fluctuations, untamed government borrowing externally and in the domestic market is to blame,” he noted.
