Martha Karua: Daniel arap Moi never teargassed churches

By Newsflash Writer

People’s Liberation Party (PLP) leader Martha Karua has criticised President William Ruto’s administration over what she described as growing disregard for places of worship, declaring that even during the late President Daniel arap Moi’s rule, police never teargassed churches.

Karua was reacting to Sunday’s incident in which former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and his entourage were teargassed during a church service at Witima ACK Church in Othaya, Nyeri County.

Speaking during a morning interview with Inooro FM on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, the veteran politician said the government had crossed a dangerous line.

Karua questioned the morality of using force inside a place of worship, saying a church should never be treated as a battleground.

“Is there any Christian who can order people attending a church to be beaten?” she posed. “A church is not a hotel where one goes to sleep. It’s a place where you go for about two to three hours and you leave.”

She argued that if authorities were interested in apprehending Gachagua or any other political figure, they should have waited until the service was over. According to Karua, storming a church and deploying teargas demonstrated a lack of restraint and respect for religious spaces.

“If they needed Rigathi or anyone else, they could have waited for him to come out. I tried to shudder about the incident… even in the times of Moi, police never entered the church,” she said.

Lessons from the Moi era

Drawing from Kenya’s political history, Karua recalled how even during periods of intense repression in the 1990s, churches were still treated as sanctuaries.

She cited the case of families of political detainees such as Koigi wa Wamwere and the late Mirugi Kariuki, who sought refuge at All Saints Cathedral after being dispersed by police at Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park.

“When they hid in the basement of All Saints Cathedral, they spent several months there. Government security agencies never entered there nor lobbed teargas at it. They just surrounded the area to bar people from visiting them,” she said.

Karua also shared a personal experience of police brutality from that era, noting that clergy intervened to protect civilians. “Personally, I have been beaten by police… but the retired Provost Bishop Peter Njenga intervened,” she recounted.

She maintained that despite the excesses of past regimes, security forces still refrained from desecrating places of worship. “Security agencies [during Moi’s time] never lobbed teargas nor caused any damage to places of worship. Today, we have a person purporting to be a Christian, who goes to church, who wooed people with the Bible, but the churches are no longer respected,” Karua said.

Rule of law and public spending

Karua noted that while Gachagua has previously faced hostility while attending church events, this marked the first known instance where teargas was lobbed inside a church.

“This is not the first time Rigathi has been attacked while in church, but it is the first time teargas has been lobbed inside a church,” she said, calling the development deeply troubling.

Looking ahead, Karua pledged to uphold the rule of law if elected president in 2027, saying her administration would prioritise constitutionalism and respect for civil liberties.

She also took aim at President Ruto’s spending habits, accusing him of misusing public funds by hosting numerous delegations at State House and issuing what she termed as handouts.

“He is serving our money like porridge at State House. Is there land where he has planted money and he is harvesting it? We never saw Mwai Kibaki dishing out money like that in State House,” Karua said.