Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga has criticized the Anglican church leadership in Kenya over its alleged engagement in partisan politics and degradation of democracy in the country.
Speaking during Christmas service at Nyamira Anglican church in Bondo Sunday, Odinga said the Anglican church leadership chose to associate itself with injustice in the country following the hotly contested 2022 general election.
“What happened on the 15th of August was shameful. When we saw the church standing in front of the camera trying to sanitize a flawed process,” he said.
The opposition leader observed that the Anglican church leadership got involved in political agitation by asking the Azimio team to withdraw election petition from the Supreme Court in the interest of a particular community and even threatened to curse some leaders if they failed to withdraw the petition.
Odinga asked the church to stop discrediting the pulpit by allowing politicians to use the church service to insult others or to drive political agenda.
“Today we see the country s top leadership going to church every Sunday to vilify leaders in the opposition and the same time talk about government programs. Government programs should be discussed in government offices or political forums and not churches,” remarked the Azimio coalition leader.
On the other hand, he asked Kenyans to remain steadfast in the fight for democracy and remain hopeful that the future will be even brighter.
Odinga who was flanked by the Siaya governor James Orengo and senator Oburu Oginga, however said that most Kenyans were disappointed at what happened in the last election and promised to give a detailed statement on the same at the turn of the new year.
On his part, Orengo faulted the government for failing to make life bearable for Kenyans, saying removal of subsidies has made survival more difficult for Kenyans.
“The first one hundred days have come and gone and the live of Kenyans are still unbearable. We are closely monitoring what is happening at the national level, but what we know is that populist programs like the Hustlers Fund has failed to cushions Kenyans from the prevailing hard economic times,” Orengo said.
Bondo MP Dr. Gideon Ochanda observed that the current confusion in the education sector has left parents with pupils joining form one and grade seven classes with difficulties in planning.
He asked the government to come clean and explain if there will be fees required to join grade seven to allow for his office to plan for bursary allocation.
“The way things stand now, we do not how to allocate the bursaries. If there will be changes in governments plans, then we will also be forced to change our plans from the current format of giving all students in second day school bursary allocations,” said the MP.
