Kenyan leaders must sit down and reason together

Dear Kenyans and people of goodwill,

We as Catholic bishops are conscious of our role as the conscience of the Nation and wish to address the concern of the call to demonstration for 20th March 2023. We feel the need to address you Kenyans and all our leaders, even in the difficult moments we are living through.

These words of scripture inspire us: “ ‘Console my people, console them,’ says your God.” (Isaiah 40:1).

The religious leaders from all religions in our country gathered on 13th March 2023, in Ufungamano House issued a statement and made a passionate appeal to the leadership of this country and to the opposition.

In that statement, specific messages were directed to President William Ruto and his government, as well as to the opposition led by Raila Odinga.

We wish to reiterate the grave concern expressed by all the religious leaders, of the return to politically incited tensions. We warn that we are in real danger of taking the slippery road to anarchy, caused by the incitement of political players.

We as Kenyans are faced by way too many problems, majorly famine and hunger, and the high cost of living. As we try to solve them, we neither wish to compound them with the risk of violence.

There are very many merit-worthy problems we must address, ills we must criticise, unkept promises we must challenge, but these must be done within the constraints of our Constitution, with due respect to the Kenyan people, to life, and to each other as leaders.

Pope Francis in his recent visit to war-torn Congo DRC and South Sudan appealed to the entire Africa, for a different kind of leadership: A leadership of service and not self-serving one. A leadership of dialogue and non-violent means to find solutions to our problems. In all this he was speaking to all of us.

We are now appealing to all leaders across the political divide that we must humble ourselves to sit, talk and dialogue, in order to find solutions. The path to resolve any problems in our country must be those within the provisions of our Constitution.

That is why we have appealed and appeal yet again to Odinga as person, and to the entire opposition led by Azimio la Umoja, that we should not give space to demonstrations that risk to turn violent, nor matches that aim at insurrection and mutiny.

Such actions would only negate the very rights and authority of their demands. Consequently we are asking Odinga and all aggrieved leaders, to seek other avenues to address the merit worthy issues.

The Constitution provides for rallies and picketing, but these cannot have an agenda of forceful take over or destabilisation of a Constitutional government. Such rallies should highlight issues and seek solutions not to compound them! Let us not weaponize misery!

With the same breath, we urge the President and his government to address the pleas of the distressed people. Enough food must reach those facing famine and the cost of living must be contained. We also call out the in-opportunity of bloating further our public expenditure, by appointing a huge number of Chief Administrative Secretaries, in a time Kenyans are struggling to survive! How can we expect Kenyans to now heed to the call of government to contribute for the support of those faced with hunger?!

We also make an appeal to all Kenyans: We have had peaceful elections last year. Further in spite of great provocation we still kept peace after the Supreme Court decision on the appeal on presidential elections. This demonstrated that Kenyans overwhelmingly voted for peace. We Kenyans must therefore refuse to be lured into the past politics of confrontation, violence and of seeking “justice” by looting and destruction of property. We Kenyans must reject the venom of hatred that is becoming commonplace in our politicians mouths. In fact we must be ready to walk out of those inciting us to violence, in order to destroy the future of our children.

We as a Country must decide that we are not going back to that slippery path that leads to violence.

Our Leaders, Let us sit down together! Kenyans, Let us reason together. We cannot allow our country to recede into disaster.

We entrust our country to God and to the responsibility of each one of us!

—The above is an abridged version of a statement issued by Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops led by its chairman, the Most Rev Martin Kivuva of Mombasa