MUTUA: RIP Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki, a sage for the ages

It’s just over two months since Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki passed. This Sunday – a day of prayer for Christians – I eulogise this great man of cloth.

Today’s column isn’t a poem, but an ode to the churchman who was a towering figure in Kenya’s Second Liberation. It’s a requiem for the Kenyan cleric who comes closest to South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Like Rev Martin Luther King Jr, Archbishops Ndingi and Tutu understood “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Archbishop Ndingi stood tall against the dictatorship of the Moi-Kanu kleptocracy. Archbishop Ndingi, a sage for the ages, is a big reason Kenyans today enjoy a freer society. He faced Mr Moi down at the height of KANU’s tyranny.

Archbishop Ndingi, a native of Mwala, Machakos County, was initially a moderate cleric in the mold of much of the Christian Church in Kenya and Africa, an institution that’s generally been pro-status quo, even in times of repression.

But the predations of the Moi state – mass killings, assassinations, torture, and denial of basic freedoms across the board – forced Archbishop Ndingi to step up. He rallied a reluctant Catholic clergy and laity to confront a savage regime on earth. An independent thinker with a stubborn streak, the archbishop became the most outspoken priest against Mr Moi’s unspeakable brutalities.

He inspired many as a champion of the meek, poor, and downtrodden. His calling card was an unbending commitment to social justice.

If one memory defines Archbishop Ndingi, it’s his confrontation with the hated Kanu provincial administration and the police for orchestrating – and then executing – the 1992 attacks on groups perceived to be anti-Kanu in the Rift Valley. The state was implicated in the killings of up to 2,000 people in the so-called “ethnic clashes.”

Mr Moi was known for summoning dissidents to frightful meetings in which he either bought, or silenced, them. 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. Other dissident clerics, such as Fr Kaiser and Alexander Muge, weren’t as lucky. They met their maker in grisly ends.

In the history of Kenya’s Church, Archbishop Ndingi stands alone in the shrine of social justice. That’s probably why Pope John Paul, the deeply conservative Polish pontiff, never made him a cardinal. It’s likely the reason the ultra-conservative Pope Benedict XVI, once a member of the Nazi Hitler Youth, was only too glad to retire him when turned 75.

Archbishop Ndingi’s world outlook was more consonant with the current Pope Francis, the Argentinian Jesuit priest. Instead, Pope Benedict chose Archbishop John Njue as cardinal. It is under Cardinal Njue’s watch that the Catholic Church repudiated the legacy of Archbishop Ndingi. Cardinal Njue’s Church has fallen into infamy and the banality of corruption in league with insidious politicians.

That’s not all. The Church has been tribalised and become a stooge of the state. We saw the depths to which the Church has fallen when Mr Moi passed on recently. To Archbishop Ndingi, Mr Moi was the anti-Christ. That’s why the mouth that praised Mr Moi should’ve also be used to praise Archbishop Ndingi. It’s one, or the other, but not both. Otherwise, the Church’s moral centre is lost. You can’t bow to Lucifer and Christ in the same breath. Or dine with the angels while cavorting with the demons.

The Church must repent and return to Archbishop Ndingi’s legacy of love for the “wretched of the earth,” the “least among us.” Who will seize the Church’s moral leadership?

The Church needs to tend to its the flock, not sinister politicians and fat-cats. That’s why I was shocked to see DP William Ruto issue a message of condolences on Archbishop Ndingi’s passing. That’s unadulterated hypocrisy and crocodile tears. Mr Ruto, you will remember, 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 – killings, beatings, and forced displacement – against the Agikuyu in the Rift Valley in 1992. These are the abominations Archbishop Ndingi fought against. Mr Ruto couldn’t have been sincere.

Mr Ruto is Archbishop Ndingi’s polar opposite. He likes to drown the Catholic Church in loot every Sunday. It’s loot because it’s obscenely gargantuan and its source both suspect and unknown. I can’t see Archbishop Ndingi tolerating blatant acts of corruption in the Church under his watch. The odious practice continues under Cardinal Njue, only interrupted by Covid-19.

But Mr Ruto stopped at nothing to misappropriate Archbishop Ndingi’s passing to paint himself as the holiest of the holy, and the most pious of the devout. In my view, 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.

Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of KHRC. @makaumutua.