Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, on Friday, May 26, alleged that Pastor Mackenzie of Good News International Church, hired bouncers, scouts and armed gangs to help him execute his mission in Shakahola Forest, Kilifi County.
Appearing before the Committee on the Proliferation of Religious Organisations, which is investigating the Shakahola deaths, Kindiki revealed that the controversial preacher had an elaborate menu for all his bouncers. The team enjoyed different balanced diet meals from Monday to Sunday.
The meals consisted of proteins, carbohydrates and vitamins.
Further, he disclosed that the meals were prepared, meeting the standards similar to the cuisines served in 3-star hotels.
"But in the process, they are just cooking all manners of food. In fact, in one structure, we found a very organised menu running from Monday to Monday," Kindiki stated.
"Three meals and well balanced. It is like a three-star hotel menu and apparatus for cooking were available there, showing they were eating a balanced diet," he added.
Why He Fed Them
Kindiki explained that Pastor Mackenzie ensured the bouncers helped him monitor his believers and followers starving to death.
He further alleged that they would strangle some victims who took time to die.
"Mackenzie had employed armed criminals to supervise starvation; if anyone changed their mind, they would be strangled, clobbered, or otherwise killed," he stated.
What left Kindiki in shock following his visit to Pastor Mackenzie's home deep in the Shakahola Forest, is that the bouncers prepared some of the meals on the graveside. The revelations came a day after Mackenzie's temporary structure in Shakahola Forest, which had a dam to provide water for irrigation, was discovered.
"The scouts and the bouncers supervising the death of our people were actually cooking on the graveside. They would dig graves in advance and then prepare people to starve to death, and if, for whatever reason, you change your mind or you are taking too long, they would kill you," he alleged.
Mackenzie convinced his followers the world would end in June 2023 and that it was important for them not to eat and die in readiness.
The CS corroborated his statement with a report from government pathologist, Johansen Odour, which revealed that some victims died of starvation while others were strangled.
"Postmortems on the recovered bodies reveal that most of the victims died of starvation, but many more also died through asphyxiation; some were strangled with bare hands while others were strangled with wires. Others were hit with blunt objects," Kindiki stated.
"Some of the victims were indoctrinated and radicalised and voluntarily agreed not to eat or drink until they die so that they could meet their creator," he added.
The CS expressed worry revealing that if the government had not intervened, Mackenzie's cult would have morphed into an organised international crime. According to the CS, most victims joined the cult in 2023.
