This archive report was first published on 6 June 2020.
Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki, a towering figure in Kenya’s Second Liberation, passed away just over two months ago. As we reflect on his legacy, it is clear that he was a sage for the ages, a champion of social justice who inspired many with his commitment to the meek, poor, and downtrodden.
Like Rev Martin Luther King Jr, Archbishop Ndingi understood that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ He stood tall against the dictatorship of the Moi-Kanu kleptocracy, facing President Moi down at the height of KANU’s tyranny.
Archbishop Ndingi, a native of Mwala, Machakos County, was initially a moderate cleric, but the predations of the Moi state forced him to step up. He rallied a reluctant Catholic clergy and laity to confront a savage regime on earth, becoming the most outspoken priest against President Moi’s brutalities.
He inspired many as a champion of the meek, poor, and downtrodden, with his calling card being an unbending commitment to social justice. If one memory defines Archbishop Ndingi, it is his confrontation with the hated Kanu provincial administration and the police for orchestrating the 1992 attacks on groups perceived to be anti-Kanu in the Rift Valley.
President Moi was known for summoning dissidents to frightful meetings, but he struck out when he tried that tactic on Archbishop Ndingi. The cleric is reported to have opened his Bible and read a verse reprimanding the dictator.
Archbishop Ndingi’s world outlook was more consonant with the current Pope Francis, the Argentinian Jesuit priest. However, Pope Benedict XVI, once a member of the Nazi Hitler Youth, chose Archbishop John Njue as cardinal, and it is under Cardinal Njue’s watch that the Catholic Church repudiated the legacy of Archbishop Ndingi.
The Church has fallen into infamy and the banality of corruption in league with insidious politicians. The Church has been tribalised and become a stooge of the state. We saw the depths to which the Church has fallen when President Moi passed on recently.
DP William Ruto issued a message of condolences on Archbishop Ndingi’s passing, but this was unadulterated hypocrisy and crocodile tears. Mr Ruto was an integral part of the Kanu system and state that teargassed Archbishop Ndingi and his penitents when he led them in the fight for democracy and human rights.
Mr Ruto was part of Youth for Kanu 92, a state-supported militia complicit in the pogroms against the Agikuyu in the Rift Valley in 1992. These are the abominations Archbishop Ndingi fought against. Mr Ruto couldn’t have been sincere.
Only Archbishop Anthony Muheria of Nyeri can return the Church to Archbishop Ndingi’s legacy of the moral teachings for social justice within a progressive Church.
