Kenyans must stop worshipping money at the altar of democracy

I was having a conversation with a friend and the question emerged: Do people of faith observe the Decalogue strictly in daily life? Let us speak plainly fellow sinners, for the sake of our Sovereign Republic. Every five years we gather at the altar of democracy, chant campaign slogans and then wonder why the sky falls the moment the winner is sworn in.

Prices spike. Roads remain half-built. Youth riots. Debts balloon like a politician’s belly at a harambee. And the prophets of doom on social media and in church WhatsApp groups cry judgement. But what if the judgement is self-inflicted? What if the real culprit is not the system, not Western nor globalist interests, not even tribalism, but the quiet, cheerful violation of the very first line in the Decalogue: Thou shalt have no other gods before me?

Because in Kenya, money is god. Not metaphorically. Literally. And the joke is older than our republic. Money is said to have been named after Juno Moneta, the Roman goddess of warning and advice. This connection came about because the first Roman mint was located in her temple on the Capitoline Hill in Rome.

Over time, the Latin word for the mint, moneta, became the word for the coins themselves, eventually evolving into the modern English word money. We have been worshipping at the feet of a pagan deity for two millennia and still act shocked when she demands her tithe. The cross-cultural deification of wealth isn't coincidence, it is evidence that money has always tempted people to elevate it to divine status.

We have replaced the jealous Yahweh with a far more accommodating idol whose name changes with every election cycle: Campaign Cash, the Great Provider of SUVs, bodyguards and facilitation envelopes. Politicians do not campaign; they perform high Mass for Mammon, complete with choirs of praise singers, miracle money that appears in sangwenya’s pockets, and false prophecies about free everything.

Observe the liturgy. Months before the polls, aspirants vanish into the temples of private banks, foreign investors and local tycoons. They emerge anointed with billions they can never repay through honest salary. The contract is simple: win, loot enough to settle the debt, and keep the change. The electorate? We are the collection plate.

A kilo of sugar here, a T-shirt there, a crisp five hundred bob note slipped into a grandmother’s palm while the pastor prays for peaceful polls. Every promise is not policy. It is the ancient art of baiting the faithful with visions of prosperity, exactly as the prophets of Baal once did on Mount Carmel.