How Kenya's grandfather of cults became a martyr 75 years ago

Elijah Masinde. He taught his a followers to worship only one God, Were, and oppose any manifestation of colonialism. [File, Standard]

When the government grabbed and exiled a radical prophet whose ideas they considered toxic over 700 kilometers away, the administrators thought they had quelled a rebellion. Elijah Masinde had founded Were in 1930s and taught his a followers to worship only one God, Were, and oppose any manifestation of colonialism.

Masinde's conviction of treason and his subsequent deportation to Lamu in 1948 where he was held in isolation until 1960 did not crash Dini Ya Musambwa, the sect the prophet had founded.