There is absolutely nothing remarkable about the doomsday preacher Paul Makenzie.
If anything, the axe-headed cult leader – often captured in wide, ill-fitting shirts and trousers – looks emaciated and worn-out.
Unlike his doomsday comrades, Makenzi does not sport a striking physique by way of beguiling looks or remarkable adornments in unique dress or bizarre gildings.
In speech – I have heard him sing – he is hoarse and off-key. He neither has tufts of lock-beards nor flaming eyes. In movement, he does not fake a saintly, celestial gait. He stomps the ground like ordinary mortals.
In fact, if you subtract the publicity that has followed him in the last two years, Makenzi is just but an ordinary coastal peasant trying to make ends meet.
Yet beneath this façade of the now dishevelled frame of a man lies a lethal merchant of death who ensnared hundreds of hapless Kenyans into early, cruel deaths.
Many Kenyans are baffled at how such a man with nothing to write home about can lure whole families into a God-forsaken ranch, and convince them to starve to death.
How can this be? They wonder!
In reality, our vulnerabilities paired against the sweet tongues of Makenzi’s ilk make many Kenyans sitting ducks. The majority of us are candidates for the next Shakahola.
You see it every day in the manner in which we all crave for miracles, extol mystery and are flummoxed by authority.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote that these three – mystery, miracle and authority – alone are capable of holding captive our collective conscience as a human race.
In his words, ordinary men and women are “impotent rebels” and unable to withstand the power of mystery, miracle and authority.
The miracle Makenzi promised his victims is one that practically all Kenyans crave after. Many Kenyans want to enjoy the best life can offer without necessarily having to sweat for it.
“Look at the birds,” Makenzi would tell his victims, “they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet the heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable?”
His miracle of plenty in Shakahola paradise, where there is no government barking orders, no school, no disease, no work, and no Raila, Ruto or Gachagua invading their sitting rooms every prime bulletin, resonates with many Kenyans.
We pray for miracles to cross our paths every single day, every Sunday. Few of us are determined to stick to the straight and narrow way.
The mysteries Makenzi exuded in his apocalyptic preaching are the kind our parents hooked us into with ghost tales of Mwalimu Jini's. They are the mysteries which embellished our Christian beliefs, yet they made absolutely no sense.
The Bible, Makenzi’s chief weapon, is awash with mysteries beyond human comprehension. From the mystery of the seven stars in Revelations to other inexplicable happenings such as the immaculate conception, Elijah’s chariot and Lot’s pillar of salt, to mention but a few.
Told with sweet tongues as Makenzi’s, mysteries easily floor human conscience, and deliver us for supper in doomsday. They deliver a more powerful dose when laced with a threat.
“It would have been much better if you had not heard my words, for this alone would have saved you. But if you hear me, judgment will be upon you,” I once heard Makenzi tell his adherents in Makaburini, Malindi.
Authority is the last of Dostoyevsky’s powers. Its manifestation in Kenyan terms is political power. One of my favourite pastimes is observing how political power melts the hearts of the ordinary, extraordinary and sophisticated men and women alike.
You often see it in the pandemonium that besets our villages whenever our favourite politicians, bishops or government officials are visiting. Our hearts melt with glee; our eyes tear up in excitement, and our ears are over expectant.
You can tell that we are predisposed to be led like a flock of sheep. This makes their work easy whenever they require us to evict our neighbour or whenever they want us to sell our earthly belongings.
Musau is a Senior Project Manager, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Member, Media Complaints Commission & Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.
