NCCK’s tough man finally serves himself humble pie
The outgoing National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) general secretary Canon Peter Karanja fired a heavy projectile from his cannon to journalists as he wound up a press briefing in Limuru on Thursday.
“Conclude the press conference when you are ready. I’m done,” he said as he walked away, a wry smile forming under his signature moustache.
That was his way of cutting short the questions directed at him regarding the controversial election of Rev Chris Kinyanjui, the clerk of the Murang’a County Assembly, to be his successor.
Before that, he had been asked whether he had a hand in selecting the team that picked Rev Kinyanjui — NCCK’s senior programme officer between January 2005 and June 2014, who hails from Murang’a, which is also Canon Karanja’s native county.
Canon Karanja’s response to that was crystallised in all of two words: “No comment.”
SMOOTH TRANSITION
It has been quite a combatant final days in office for a man who took over the general secretary seat in 2007 under relatively tranquil conditions.
His predecessor, Rev Mutava Musyimi, had opted for an early retirement on March 2007 after 14 years at the helm and, according to a Daily Nation report of July 2007.
Canon Karanja was appointed by a search committee that comprised 15 church leaders, Rev Musyimi included.
It is at the same venue used on Thursday — the Jumuia Conference and Country Home — that Canon Karanja’s appointment was announced on early July 2007.
With that announcement, Canon Karanja — then the provost (head of cathedral) of the All Saints’ Cathedral in Nairobi — assumed office on November 1, 2007, without much grumbling.
DISGRUNTLED MEMBERS
It is a stark contrast with Thursday when the NCCK executive committee announced that it was satisfied with the way Rev Kinyanjui was recruited.
This was an announcement that came amid divisions and controversy. Eerily, NCCK chairman Timothy Ndambuki was absent from the briefing, though Canon Karanja said he had sent an apology.
Correspondence between Canon Karanja and disgruntled NCCK members before the Limuru meeting betrayed the heaviness with which he stepped on the gasoline pedal to surge forward with the succession agenda.
When eight NCCK members wrote to protest Rev Kinyanjui’s election and demanded a special meeting of the executive committee to address the matter, Canon Karanja wrote back with a tough demand for money.
He asked them to raise Sh2.5 million for footing expenses. He would later change his mind and allow a meeting, but with a newer set of conditions.
BLOWBACK
One email written in the middle of the controversy, from Rev Joshua Koyo of the Episcopal Church of Africa, said that the NCCK integrity is “at serious risk following the controversial election”.
It remains to be seen whether NCCK’s integrity will take a beating with the recent turn of events, and whether Canon Karanja will carry the skunk of all that.
A man who introduced fresh policies as an Anglican provost and as general secretary, Canon Karanja has his legacy at stake, owing to the muddied succession, but he thinks journalists might have been blowing up some of the issues.
“The media has tried to play up so-called differences even where they don’t exist,” he said.
As he leaves office at the age of 59, the alumnus of Alliance High School and the University of Nairobi will have to reflect on his 12 years as the general secretary.
As stated in the NCCK website, his position charged him with, among others, the task of “facilitating prudent stewardship of the council’s resources”.
INTROSPECTION
The NCCK runs hotels, conference facilities, office blocks and hospitals.
Canon Karanja will have time to reflect whether the business acumen he had from a young Standard Four boy — when he planted sukuma wiki for sale to help his widowed mother stay afloat — was put into good use while at the NCCK pinnacle.
Ahead of October 1 when Rev Kinyanjui is expected to take over officially, Canon Karanja may want to flash back to that day in April 2009 when he spoke tough against the Grand Coalition Government partners: Mwai Kibaki (President) and Raila Odinga (Prime Minister).
“Your excellencies, the way you are leading this country lacks vision and reflects irresponsibility and indiscipline. You have worked hard to embarrass, rather than embrace, each other,” he said as he read a statement on behalf of the council.
He can equally look back at April 2016, the time he led NCCK into demanding the disbandment of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) then chaired by Issack Hassan.
Having thought of those and other NCCK statements he amplified, he may want to think whether the criticism he had been directing at State agencies has now fallen on his doorstep.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Post a Comment