Francis Wambugu Irungu Church leaders across Kenya, with Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit taking the lead, have raised urgent alarms about the surge in political rhetoric as the nation enters 2026 and builds toward the 2027 general elections.
Speaking during a poignant New Year service on December 31, 2025, at the iconic All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi, Ole Sapit implored politicians to moderate their tone and avoid fueling divisions through aggressive alliances and tribal appeals. He painted a vivid picture of a country at risk, where such discord could unravel the social fabric already frayed by persistent economic hardships.
At the heart of Ole Sapit’s critique lay the everyday burdens weighing on Kenyans: punitive taxation regimes, crippling interest rates on loans, skyrocketing electricity costs that hit households hard, unchecked government borrowing that balloons national debt, and the pervasive cancer of corruption siphoning resources from development.
These elements, he argued, are not abstract policies but real chains binding families and small businesses in a cycle of survival rather than prosperity. Other church voices align seamlessly with this diagnosis, collectively demanding a return to principled leadership, one that serves the public good above narrow electoral calculations.
Ole Sapit went further, championing the protection of independent institutions like the judiciary and electoral bodies, alongside strict adherence to constitutional norms, as bulwarks against creeping authoritarianism. In doing so, he reaffirmed the church’s timeless role as Kenya’s moral anchor amid political storms.
Ole Sapit’s delivery was laced with pastoral urgency, highlighting how inflammatory speech sows seeds of anxiety and communal rifts in an already polarized society. He beseeched leaders to subordinate personal or partisan ambitions to the greater national interest, advocating open forums for dialogue that directly confront the cost-of-living crisis gripping the populace.
This message dovetails with longstanding church interventions in Kenya’s body politic, where clerics have repeatedly stepped in to mediate conflicts, demand transparency, and rally citizens around shared values, a legacy from post-colonial eras through recent youth-led agitations.
Expanding the chorus, Bishop Kennedy Kamau of Redeemed Gospel Sanctuary in Kawangware branded corruption as Kenya’s most destructive plague, asserting that “no economic blueprint can succeed without confronting it head-on,” and called for immediate audits of public spending.
Bishop Samuel Njiriri, chairperson of the evangelical churches, tempered the critique with optimism, expressing firm confidence in President William Ruto’s development agenda, noting its potential to deliver jobs and infrastructure if paired with anti-graft resolve.
