Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

CONMEN masquerading as street preachers have returned for business in passenger servicing vehicles, particularly country buses using Kisumu-Kericho-Nairobi route with a big bang, like thunderbolt. They are minting thousands of shillings from unsuspecting travelers. The traveling passengers are being subjected to a lot of suffering by these street-preachers-cum-beggars and conmen.

The traffic policemen who are always found idling themselves a long the route seem to be impotent and cannot help. Apart from begging money from passengers with menaces, the preachers are making such loud noise, while preaching using crude language and at times even inaudible.

Their language of communications is mixed poor Kiswahili-English, but the men obviously lack proper training in evangelism or in preaching the word of gospel. One of them, who is notorious usually boards buses at the Kericho Caltex Petrol Station, where most passenger vehicles heading for either Kisii or Kisumu stops over. On one or two occasion, the notorious preacher had been seen almost exchanging blows with a bus conductor for denying him free entry into the vehicle. It seems to be a new method devised by these conmen of begging alms from traveling members of the public.

In some of the Nairobi bound country buses, notices are posted conspicuously on the entrances ”No Preacher is allowed”. These conmen, however, have found an easy accesses to quite a few country buses. And one company with the largest fleet of buses plying this route seemed not to care much about the discomfort of their traveling passengers. The Eldoret Express crew appear not bothered by the loud nois of these conmen-cum-preachers.

Kenya, arguably, is a God fearing nation. Her citizens are either devout Christians or Moslems and as such do tolerate a lot when someone is preaching the word of gospel or Quran. But this is not the case with the latest arrival of crusading style preachers inside speeding buses. As the vehicles engine roars in full blast, the preacher has to shout the loudest so that everyone inside the bus can hear him. This is a real menaces to travelers.

One such preachers who uses Dho-Luo dialect mixed with poor English and Kiswahili is notorious for asking any generous passenger to give him anything like 200/- which he urgently needs to enable him to travel to Busia on Kenya-Uganda border where he is supposedly summoned to go and preach the word of gospel in the service of God.. The man usually conducts what looked like “Mini Harambee” inside the traveling bus. But he would repeat the same appeal inside one bus after the other, and at the end of the day, I am told he nets between 1500 and 2000 in a day.

In the evening time, the same gospel preacher is a common visitor at place notorious in Kisumu City as “The Beer Belt, seeping a glass of beer while surrounded by young ladies, commonly known as “The dot..com of Kisumu”. In their gospel, these street preachers dwell mostly on the possibility of passengers meeting road mishaps on the way to their destination, This kind of appeal usually gets through the ears and hearts of the strictly religious passengers. The preacher would then offer poorly said word of prayers, wishing the passengers safe journey to their destination and stop there. And immediately start moving around asking for offering in the name of God’s work.

The Kisumu based preachers would normally board the bus at Kisumu and would either alight at Ahero or if the business is rather fertile continue up to Awasi. Between Awasi and Kericho there would be another preacher. And between Kericho and Molo Junction of Eldoiret-Nakuru and Nakuru -Kericho is another preacher who has self-styled himself as a Professor. This one, apart from mixing English-Kiswahili, Kikuyu dialect appears to have crammed some knowledge about the bible. He preaches well in style and he is also eloquent enough to be heard. But before alighting, he would invent a story of any urgent work of God he had been assigned in either Laikipia, Eldoret or Nyahururu which requires him to travel to those places urgently and needed some financial support from God’s children.

The situation is even more pathetic during school holidays when pupils and students travel. The preachers instill a lot of fears in the minds of the young people by talking more about grisly road accidents from schools travels home or returning to their learning institutions. They force the pupils to part with some money towards prayers for good luck in their journeys.

This are obviously “Mini-Harambee”. Can anyway in the higher authority intervene and instill a strict rule on the owners of these passenger vehicles?.The traveling public must be protected from these money-maniac characters or crocked minded conmen. The proprietors of these buses must spell out strict rules to their conductors and crews as well as enforce them. The passengers need to be comfortable in their grueling journey. Some of the passengers are heading to places like Nairobi in search of medical care and need to be left alone from the noise making preachers.

These preachers don’t disclose the name of their churches, and they seemed to have taken everything for granted that this is the surest way of making easy money without having sweated for it The police must intervene and come to the rescue of the traveling passengers. The traveling passengers urgently needs another Minister John Miuchuki to spell out the rules barring the crusaders insiders buses.

ENDS
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

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Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:45:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: Leo Odera Omolo
Subject: THE REETURN OF STREET PREACHERS ON THE KISUMU-KERICHO-NAIROBI BOUND BUSES WHO ARE NOT ONLY FLEECING PASSENGERS BUT INSTILLING FEARS AS WELL AS HARRASSING TRAVELLERS.