Kenyans thought KRA’s PIN was for the Antichrist

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) recently introduced iTax, an online system that will save Kenyans endless hours lining up at Times Tower to give unto ‘Caesar’ in a country where tax evasion is deemed clever.

The Personal dentification Number (PIN) is integral in tax collection, but did you know Kenyans resisted it for ages because of 666, the number of the beast that is associated with Satan?

A long running Biblical prophesy was that Jesus Christ would lead His 1,000 year kingdom after toppling a great world government, whose key feature was a cashless economy where everyone had a PIN.

This forewarning, about rule of the Antichrist identified with 666 as ‘mark of the beast’ had gained currency a decade to KRA’s formation in 1995.

The beast, it was said, would come either from Rome (read the Pope) or America, where President Ronald Reagan had left office in 1989 and moved into a California ranch whose address was 666 St Cloud Road.

It was later changed to 668 St Cloud Road, but Kenyans, being the religious type they are, linked the KRA PIN to the government of 666 that was also to enforce a single world religion.

This fear was further drilled into the faithfuls through Revelations 13:15-18, which talks about the beast that was to force everyone “to receive a mark on their right hand, or on their foreheads.”

Rumour mills had it that the KRA PIN would be the one on Kenyans’ foreheads for easy identification by the 666 regime. The Book of Revelations added that “no man might buy or sell, save he that has the mark, or the name of the beast or the number of his name...whose number is six hundred three score and six.”

Without the PIN, there would no transactions. Everyone had to pledge loyalty to 666 to get the PIN. Kenyans were scared stiff of the PIN, which is a legal requirement.

Richard Donner’s 1979 supernatural religious horror trilogy, The Omen, made the 666 myth even more scary, with one character, Damien Thorn, sporting the 666 mark on his head.

Preachers made a meal of the 666,  leading to even greater fear of the PIN in Kenya, a country with a historical aversion to taxes since the days of the Hut Tax and the Poll Tax  in 1910. These levies were ruthlessly enforced by the colonialists who would seize livestock, as well as arrest and beat defaulters.

The Hut Tax was levied on huts, while Poll Tax was paid by everyone over the age of 25 - meaning they were double taxed if they had a hut.

Polygamy was the norm, translating to many huts and heavier tax burden in homesteads with grown-up sons with own ‘cubes.’ When tax was raised from two to three Rupees (the monthly salary in the 1900s), Kenyans began crowding in huts as an early form of tax evasion!