Keep the Lie Buster on as politicians turn falsehoods into poll weapons

President William Ruto during the launch of the construction of Bukembe-Nzoia-Market-Mutomolo road and access roads at Bukembe in Kanduyi Constituency, Bungoma County. [PSC]

Kenya is entering a year of lies — a year of manipulation and exaggeration. For a long stretch, politicians have lied.

But the next twelve months will see them pull, from their insulated bunkers, their last and most piercing reserves of rhetoric — carefully targeted at the voter. This is not a new season. It is an old season wearing new clothes, arriving with a rhythm Kenyans recognise the way one recognises a returning rainy season — not by the calendar, but by the smell in the air.

The Apostle Paul does not only say “test everything.” He adds: hold fast to what is good. Testing without holding is mere suspicion; holding without testing is mere gullibility. A year of lies will demand both from every believer who still wants to vote and worship with integrity intact.

One must ask: why would anyone want to win through deception? It can only be a sour victory. A throne built on falsehood does not become sturdier for being won. It only becomes more anxious, because the builder knows what the foundation is made of. Scripture is blunt: God is not a man that he should lie. A God who never lies cannot be represented by a campaign that survives on deception. Every lie told in His name is, in the end, a form of blasphemy — a borrowing of divine authority to cover human ambition.

Perhaps this explains a strange Kenyan reality: no sooner does one election end than the next campaign begins. A thief is always looking over his shoulder — he runs even when no one is chasing him. An insecure politician campaigns even when no one is competing with him. The fear is not always of the opponent.

This is why yesterday’s rally becomes today’s press statement and tomorrow’s church visit — the same message, repackaged and recostumed for a new audience. It is not conviction that keeps the campaign running. It is the fear of what silence might allow the truth to say.

The lies will come dressed as promises, appeals, religious claims, tribal narratives, money, and manufactured drama — from podiums draped in flags and pulpits draped in stoles. No single lie will announce itself as a lie. When it comes, push back. Keep the Lie Buster frequency on.

Seven lies.

1. “Take this money — see how much we care for you.” Care that only appears at nomination season is a transaction wearing the language of affection. If someone only cares when they need my vote, they do not care for me — they need me.
2. “God is with us, not with them.” This is the lie the pulpit is sometimes paid to tell. Kenya has its own court prophets — preachers who bless what they should question. Scripture named this danger long ago: four hundred prophets told King Ahab what he wanted to hear; only Micaiah told the truth and was struck for it. The Church’s calling is Micaiah’s, not the court’s. God is not a party mascot paraded from rally to rally, and no manifesto gains divine endorsement because a preacher opens it in prayer. When faith is used to silence scrutiny, it becomes cover.
3. “We are national; they are tribal.” Don’t judge by the flag they wave — judge by what’s underneath. Look at how appointments are made, how opportunities are distributed, how alliances are built and abandoned. A leader who speaks the language of nationhood in public while practising the arithmetic of tribe in private has simply learned to disguise tribalism more elegantly.

The plan

4. “We have a plan.” This is not supposed to be a lie – but it largely is! Often it is not a plan but a marketing tool wearing policy’s clothes. Whether it is a new term sought or one more term renewed, the pattern repeats: announced with confidence, abandoned without explanation, replaced by the next plan before anyone asks what became of the last. A plan that cannot be audited was never a plan. It was an advertisement.
5. “We fulfilled all our promises.” Show us. Not speeches or statistics recited without context — show the promise as made, what was delivered, what it cost, who was left out. A ribbon-cutting is not evidence. A press statement is not an audit.
6. “Without us, there will be disaster.” Do not vote out of fear, one of the oldest instruments of manipulation. Ask for evidence. Any leader who insists the nation cannot survive without him is not describing the nation’s weakness. He is describing his own indispensability — a very different claim.
7. “Trust us — we know best.” Democracy is not a blank cheque. The moment “just trust us” replaces “here is our record, examine it,” that is precisely the moment to question hardest. Confidence that cannot survive scrutiny was never confidence — only performance waiting to be tested. The politicians will have their microphones. The propagandists will have their platforms. Kenyans must keep their Lie Buster frequency on. A lie repeated a thousand times does not become truth, and a victory built on lies can never be sweet.

But resistance is not the whole calling, and the church’s role is not merely civic. Discernment is not only a citizen’s duty; Scripture names it a gift of the Spirit, the ability to distinguish between spirits, given to the church precisely for seasons like this one. The congregation that cannot tell a false prophecy from a true one will not tell a false promise from a true one either.

So the Kenyan voter is called to more than detection. Ask better questions. Demand evidence, not eloquence. Reward substance, not spectacle. Vote for the plan, not the promise; for the record, not the rhetoric. Faithful citizenship is not cynicism dressed in scripture. It is discernment dressed in courage.

The lie only wins where the citizen goes silent and the church with him. The manipulation only spreads where the people — and the pulpits meant to sharpen them — stop asking. So ask. Test. Verify. Then choose — not from fear or flattery, but from truth carefully sought and weighed.

A nation does not heal by electing better liars. It heals by raising better questioners — and the church, if it remembers whose voice it carries, must raise the first ones. Keep the Lie Buster frequency on — not only to catch what is false, but, like Micaiah, to speak what is true when the room prefers a comfortable lie.