On Sunday, July 17, Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Coalition party presidential candidate Raila Odinga focused his presidential campaigns in Nairobi County.
During the visit, the 2022 presidential election front runner attended a church service at Globe Deliverance Church.
In photos doing rounds on social media platforms, Raila was seen donning a high priest’s holy garments while holding a Bible.
Raila’s choice of dress elicited sharp reactions from netizens with some claiming that the 2022 presidential candidate was seeking votes while others claimed that Raila was seeking God’s intervention ahead of his titanic battle with Deputy President William Ruto.
However, in a statement on Monday, July 18, retired cleric and civil rights activist Timothy Njoya, a radical former Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) minister, castigated Raila for wearing priest garb.
Njoya argued that elevating Kenya’s longest opposition leader Raila Odinga to the position of high priest is not only sacrilegious but also vulgar and demonic.
Njoya questioned if Kenya is still a secular state or a theocracy given the practices of the church.
“The fact that I believe in Christ and in myself does not make my belief religious, especially to the extent of this religious slavery and colonialism,
“Why should one be elected for following A religiosity from which Christ came to liberate people? I hope Kenya won’t become theocratic,” Timothy Njoya said in a tweet.
This was not the first time Raila is donning clerical attires.
In 2019, the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition party flag bearer Raila Odinga revealed that he once dressed as a priest to evade arrest during late President Daniel Moi’s regime.
Raila who was speaking to a congregation in Kisumu said Archbishop Zacchaeus Okoth dressed him as a priest and sneaked him out of Ukweli Pastoral Centre in the cover of darkness.
