Combating religious cults is timely, but let us also get rid of cultic politicians

Bodybags with victims of a Christian cult are seen during the exhumation from a forest at Shakahola outskirts of Malindi town, Kenyan Coast Tuesday, April 25, 2023. [AP Photo]

I watched my father fade away. Helpless, pained and traumatised, I held him in my hands and tried to rock him to sleep like I had done so many times before. A weak smile crawled across his shriveled face. He opened his deep sunken eyes, and in a whisper, asked me to make some promises. I listened keenly. Moments after he uttered his last wishes, Mzee Philip Oyieri Okalo, died on my lap.

Cancer had slowly eaten into the tall, 6ft 2, muscular man leaving behind a lump of skinny skeleton. Despite the excruciating pain during his last minutes on earth, he made me promise that I wouldn't pursue and punish the conman who had exploited his illness. My father had visited many hospitals, seeking treatment for his numerous recurring ailments. Without my knowledge, however, he would make secret trips to Nairobi to seek services of a self-proclaimed healer. A young pastor had set camp in the populous Kawangware area from where he would prey on the old and sickly. Men and women, desperate for healing, would troop to his ramshackle dwelling for a bottle of his magic water.