By Nyakang’o O’Nyamota
In the ancient world, rulers like Pharaoh and King Herod governed with absolute authority. Their paranoia was lethal.
When Pharaoh feared the rise of a new generation among the Israelites, he ordered the mass murder of all Hebrew baby boys (Exodus 1:22).
Herod, similarly, driven by fear of a prophetic king, commanded the slaughter of innocent children in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16).
These were not mere acts of governance gone wrong — they were state-sanctioned massacres. And history has judged them harshly.
Today, in 21st-century Kenya, we are witnessing the grim reincarnation of such brutality — this time dressed in suits, flanked by armed bodyguards, and shielded by a veneer of constitutional legitimacy.
In Kenya, the regime no longer governs by consent; it governs by coercion. Extrajudicial killings have become a silent but consistent policy.
Across the country, young men — especially the unemployed, the poor, the bold — are disappearing. Some are found dumped in rivers.
Others are never found at all. Their only crime: speaking out, standing up, or simply being poor in the wrong neighbourhood.
A Government at War with Its People
Let us be clear: extrajudicial killings are not the work of “rogue officers,” as the government claims.
They are the byproduct of an entrenched culture of impunity — enabled by silence at the top, protected by politically captured institutions, and justified through fear-mongering narratives about security and order.
This is not law enforcement. It is lawful murder — and it echoes the biblical horrors we often read with detached awe.
Pharaoh feared an uprising. Herod feared a new king. Kenya’s regime fears a generation of young, unemployed, politically conscious citizens who know their rights and dare to demand accountability.
These rulers — past and present — all share one trait: the inability to imagine a future where they are not in control. So, they kill.
Modern-Day Massacres, Biblical Consequences
The Bible warns that the blood of the innocent cries out from the ground (Genesis 4:10).
In Kenya, that blood now flows in Mathare, Kisumu, Garissa, and Mt. Elgon — staining the soil of a nation that calls itself God-fearing, yet murders its own sons and daughters with impunity.
This regime attends prayer breakfasts, funds cathedral constructions, and kneels before pastors. But Pharaoh, too, had priests.
Herod built temples. God is not fooled by pious posturing. The divine has always stood with the oppressed — and history, as ever, is unforgiving.
The youth get killed in protests. Activists get abducted in the dark. The mutilated bodies get collected from rivers and thickets.
These are not isolated incidents. They are coordinated acts of state violence — the silent policy of fear.
We Are Living Through Our Own Exodus
Kenya’s youth are the Moses of today — cast adrift by a violent system but destined for greatness.
Like Jesus, hunted by Herod, they carry within them a redemptive fire no bullet can extinguish.
Let it be known: this regime may silence voices, but it cannot kill the truth. And as Scripture shows, every empire built on blood eventually collapses.
To the regime: your hands are stained. Your silence is complicity. Your power is not eternal.
To Kenyans: we must resist the normalisation of state violence. We must refuse to be a generation that mourns more than it acts. If we remain silent, we become co-authors of this national horror story.
The question is no longer whether our leaders are the Pharaohs and Herods of our time — they are.
The real question is: who among us will rise to be Moses?