Mungiki
An Apologetics Index research resource

Mungiki disciples claim it is a ''homegrown'' religious organisation committed to upholding the traditional ''African way of worship, culture and lifestyle,'' according to its national coordinator, Mr. Ndura Waruinge.

Its members, he believes, are genuine citizens disillusioned with perceived misrule and now crusade for a meaningful change in the running of the country's affairs.

Mungiki's genesis is as clouded as the sect's cause. But reports indicate this shadowy group, whose members wear dreadlocks, emerged in 1985.

Around the same time, the crusade for multipartyism and better governance, symbolised by Mwakenya, was nearing its peak. The group, however, only came to the limelight a few years ago.

Mungiki's tenets centre on chastity and African values. It professes female circumcision and the traditional Kikuyu way of worship - praying facing Mt Kenya. It also believes in oathing and sacrifices.

But this is just what its disciples claim. Mungiki's propensity for violence is what has placed the sect in sharp focus. To an extent, Mungiki has become a by-word for thuggery.
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The sect has always left a trail of arson, forced oathing and forced circumcision in its wake. Its operations have centred on Central Province, especially in Nyeri, Nakuru and Laikipia districts. Its exact membership remains unknown.

A recent report by an international news station drew parallels between Mungiki and the Mau Mau, the pre-independence movement that arguably forced out colonialists of Kenya in the 1950s.
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Thousands of young Kenyans, inspired by the bloody Mau Mau rebellion that fought British colonial rule, are flocking to an aggressive religious cult that rejects the trappings of Western culture.

Followers of the so-called Mungiki youth sect, whose 300,000 members see themselves as ''the true sons of the Mau Mau'', decry what they regard as the more degenerate aspects of Western culture, including cinemas, alcohol, tobacco and miniskirts.
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