Orengo Hosts Kenya’s Last Concentious Prelate

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On Monday, Siaya Governor James Aggrey Bob Orengo hosted former Catholic Archbishop Zaccheus Okoth in his office and that sparked something in my memory.

As the two posed for a photoshoot one could see the dying embers of Kenya’s Liberation struggle. Here was Orengo, a man who had viciously stood up for democratisation in Kenya’s long and often tumultuous struggle for civil rights standing beside Kenya’s last Concentious Prelate.

Zaccheus Okoth is among the crop of Kenyan clergy who stood up to the State and called out repressive legislation whenever the country was threatened by sliding into a dictatorship.

Zaccheus Okoth was among other clerical luminaries such as Alexander Kipsang Muge, David Gitari, Maurice Otunga, Timothy Njoya, Manasses Kuria and others not so well known.

These clergymen earned their place in the annals of Kenya’s history in that they refused to succumb to money and the manipulation of government. Some openly declined state appointments and kept the pulpit free from corruption and divisions brought about by politics.

It is on record that Bishop Wesonga of Diocese of Maseno West turned down a ministerial appointment after successfully mediating in the inter-party talks following the contentious 2007 Elections. Today a whole Bishop would jump at the opportunity of being appointed a clerk in government. Greed and avarice – absolutely no morals, at all!

Today Kenya has retrogressed to the political situation in Europe in the 14th Century when the King was both Head of State and Church.

No Prelate today can stand up and be counted as looking out for the flock of God. Priests and politicians are notably the wealthiest folk in society, morals have been corrupted and the Bible doctrine warped to fit the gospel of prosperity.

Sadly people still troop to churches in large numbers every weekday to be brainwashed by these money-grubbing prelates who are constantly in bed with politicians.

That photo of Orengo standing beside Zaccheus Okoth stirred another memory in me. That instead of blaming religious leaders and politicians who are out to make hay, I should get out of bed and do something for myself.

Don’t fool yourself that anyone is looking out for you (spiritually or otherwise).