Former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s cousin, Kung’u Muigai, has set out to quash central region cultural practices he deemed archaic.
In what will be his first duty as the Chairperson of the Kenya Cultural Center Council, Kung’u has vowed to rid the region of retrogressive cultural practices.
Some outlawed practices include; the demand for goats to be slaughtered by elders as a way of welcoming age groups into levels of eldership promoting stock thefts in the region, as well as tobacco snuffing and demand for cigarettes from newly circumcised boys.
“I know that my job entails working countrywide but charity begins at home. Before we preach yonder we must first do it in Jerusalem - which is home," he affirmed.
Kung’u further disclosed that the central region was home to cultural groupings that advanced self-interests to the detriment of the community.
He stated that he was against the cultural practice that required newly circumcised boys to engage in vices claimed to cleanse their wounds.
"We continue to subject women to archaic limitations, subjecting our children to harmful practices and making our men believe they own the world and are always right even when wrong.
“Cultural practice that requires newly circumcised boys to have unprotected sex to cleanse the wounds. You need not even think about it, starting now, that thinking is criminal,” he opined.
In his submissions, Kung'u also accused some elders of manipulating historical facts regarding traditions to create an avenue to con children.
"We are now aware that this ritual that has all along been misinterpreted has reached a point of gross abuse and gained grave criminal dimensions," he explained.
Equally, he stated that brokers had infiltrated the cultural practices by working in cahoots with commercial sex workers to receive kickbacks. Brokers would receive upward of Ksh 2000 in the transactions while awarding themselves Ksh 500 per victim.
Kungu's onslaught on unscrupulous vices in the central region's cultural practices came from the council of elders calling out the outlawed practices.
In November 2020, the Kikuyu Council of Elders (Kiama Kia Ma) raised the alarm over the creeping back of female genital mutilation among the Kikuyu community.
The council condemned the practice, which they termed as archaically retrogressive, and inhuman and distanced themselves from the Gwata Ndai (take a riddle) cultural group, which they alleged is involved in the vice.
Elders, through Gitau Thiong'o, called upon the police to arrest and prosecute all those perpetrating what he called "evil against our innocent women and girls".
"Why do people want to take our community backwards instead of forward?" he paused.
