<strong>Coast Christian clergy vow to take drugs menace head-on</strong>

A section of clergymen at the Coast has said they will take on the drug menace in the region head-on and ensure rehabilitation of the addicts.

The Coast has over 18,000 injectable drug users, who are hooked to hard drugs, while over 500,000 others abuse other substances like alcohol, miraa, and cigarettes, among others.

About 400 members of the Association of Pentecostal and Evangelical Clergy of Kenya (APECK) on Wednesday were trained on how to handle drug addicts to embark on an aggressive mission to rehabilitate them.

The training, done by the National Authority for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse, was conducted at the Uhuru na Kazi building, which houses the regional administrative headquarters.

APECK national chair Rev Fredrick Ngugi said the Church has been doing little to help fight drugs and help drug addicts but has now woken up.

“We are not doing much but we have the capacity to do much more,” Rev Ngugi said.

He noted that most of the drug addicts are intelligent people who are only sick and need the love and care families give to their sick loved ones.

“Addicts are not criminals. They are sick people. They are intelligent people. The Devil targets these intelligent people,” he told fellow clergy at the Uhuru na Kazi board room.

He said a recent visit at the Miritini Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Mombasa county revealed that those hooked to drugs admitted there learned people.

“75 of them are university students. One of them was doing actuarial science. Some of these people are geniuses. They just need the mercy from us,” he said.

He noted that drug addiction is killing more people in Kenya than other diseases are.

He revealed his loss, which changed his view of the drug addicts.

“My son was a very intelligent man. They were twins. They were geniuses. But they were drinking too much. One day, one of them did not wake up,” he said.

He said the clergy and the Church have the potential to redeem the situation, which has at one time put them in an awkward situation with their counterparts from Uganda.

The Ugandan clergy once came to Kenya to benchmark how their Kenyan counterparts are “doing a good job rehabilitating drug addicts and giving them another chance at life”.

“In my mind, I was wondering how?” he revealed.

Rev Ngugi, who is also a Nacada director, said dealing with drug addicts requires patience and understanding because they are not patient, are always hungry, and have a short concentration span.

Kenya’s second lady Dorcas Gachagua, who is the APECK patron, challenged the clergy to start helping drug addicts in the country saying the clergy could no longer hide inside the four walls of the church while the youth are dying in their hundreds of thousands due to drug abuse.

That was the impetus that the clergy needed.

The second lady then started off the Community Rehabilitation Initiative which APECK picked up.

It started in the Central region where, according to Rev Ngugi, about four people were committing suicide in Githunguri per week because of drug abuse at some point.

“After about a year, we had reformed 125 of them. Out of these 125, 90 per cent found jobs by themselves,” he noted.

He noted that some returned to their wealthy families, some got married and started families, while others were able to finish their studies at university.

“In Karuri, two bought pickups and started doing business and they have now employed other people in their businesses,” the Nacada director said.

APECK national vice chair Bishop Joseph Maisha said it is easier to rehabilitate drug addicts through the Church.

He said this is especially so at the Coast where children as young as 10-year-olds are hooked to drugs.

“In Mombasa, Kisauni and Likoni are the most feared areas because of the menace the drug users cause. The small children slash people with machetes when they are high,” he said.

He called on the government to be tough on drug dealers saying to kill a snake one must hit it in the head.

“The government must be tough on the traffickers and dealers because some of them are big people in the country,” he noted.

Rev Ngugi said the Church must play a leading role in the fight against drugs and not act as the Biblical Pharisees who did not help a man who had been attacked by robbers, passing him without as much as looking at him until the Good Samaritan came to his rescue.

Nacada has trained clergy in Kiambu, Bungoma, Bomet, Usain Gishu, and now the six counties of the Coast region.

He warned the drug traffickers that they will do all they can to ensure they have no clients or customers.

“You make business out of drugs. Now we will withdraw all your customers and bring them to Church. In Juja, we did that. It can happen here at the Coast,” he said.

He said they will also mobilize the Muslim clergy to do the same in their mosques to deny the drug traffickers customers.

Nacada Coast regional manager George Karisa said the authority needs the Church because it cannot succeed without the help of the clergy.

He noted that the Coast has a higher prevalence of drug abuse at 13.2 per cent compared to the national prevalence which stands at 12.8 per cent, according to a survey they did last year.