This archive report was first published on 4 August 2019.
On August 3, 2019, a dramatic scene unfolded at the Nairobi Central Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church in Nairobi, as two splinter groups nearly engaged in a fistfight during a Saturday service.
The police were deployed to the church to separate the warring parties, with GSU, regular police, and officers from the Flying Squad involved in the intervention.
At the centre of the protracted battle is millions of shillings offered as tithe by the faithful, including senior government officials and top businessmen.
According to church elder Jerry Magutu, the division in the church has taken a tribal angle, with two ethnic groups that have traditionally dominated the membership of the church engaging in supremacy battles.
Magutu blamed the church's top management for failing to deal with grievances that emanated from the election of church leaders, claiming that a certain pastor had introduced a new system of elections that saw the faithful divided along tribal lines.
However, elder Lias Ochola defended the pastor, stating that the election of new officials followed the laid down procedures as prescribed by the church's constitution.
On July 30, senior pastor Jean Pierre Miywa and clerk Samuel Oyombra wrote to DCI chief George Kinoti to probe four members of a rival group, accusing them of sabotaging peace deals in the church.
