'Talk without action will not work,' Archbishop Ole Sapit dares gov't on taming goonism

Speaking during the restoration of St Nicholas Chapel at the All Saints' Cathedral, which was invaded by goons in June, Ole Sapit said that the government should stop sounding warnings on combating the vice without taking action.

He opined that the government has lost public trust after being linked to the deployment of the violent groups in various places, and hesitance to tame the goons can bear dire ramifications.

"If they want to regain public trust, action must be taken. We were attacked last month; the case is in court. We want to see goons arrested and the identity of those who sent them. This culture must be brought to an end," he said.

"Who is in charge of law and order, the police or the goons? The culture has heightened; we have seen everything displayed; we even saw what happened to [Albert] Ojwang', no justice for the family. We have not seen justice, especially for the masterminds."

The Archbishop maintained that sponsored violence can never be the solution to settle political scores, and will only plunge the country into chaos.

He condemned the church attack, urging the youths being used as conduits of violence to focus instead on voting for change to tame their vulnerability against opportunists.

"Culture of goonism will not give us the dreams and desires, with the economic hardships, it will make it harder. We are descending into a state of lawlessness. In Ol Kalou, police were mobilized. The message is that we are securing, what we saw was the opposite. Hooded men were shooting and dispersing them [residents] no arrests were made," he said.

He was referring to the recently witnessed chaos in the Ol-Kalou by-election where hooded men, linked to political leaders in the ruling party, were seen targeting supporters of the opposition party.

During the invasion, one of the invaders told Citizen TV that they were financed by a Nairobi Member of Parliament and executed the invasion with the support of plainclothes police officers. 

The man narrated how he and others were promised Ksh.2,000 per person, with each man instructed to source a motorcycle and ride in pairs. 

This comes a day after President William Ruto directed security agencies to tame the goon culture, stating that the rise of violent youthful groups has become a threat to national security and will cripple the nation's growth.

"Now that we have a consensus, our security agencies must do their job within the law, and they must stop criminality. That is how we are going to secure Kenya's future even as we discuss this future of our nation in the context of what we are saying," he said while receiving a blueprint on Kenya's Vision 2030 development plan.