Gunmen twice stormed All Saints’ Cathedral in Nairobi during a post‑budget forum on 12 June 2026, roughing up participants and stealing phones and cash, turning Kenya’s best‑known Anglican church into the latest front line in the battle over civic space and political “goonism.” 

Church leaders and civil society have condemned the raid as a desecration of holy ground and a warning shot at Kenyans who seek to question how their money is spent, while the government insists it is investigating and has a handful of suspects in custody.

The violence broke out as All Saints’ Cathedral hosted a public forum on the government’s 2026–2027 budget. The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), Transparency International – Kenya (TI‑Kenya) and other groups had invited activists, lawyers, church members and interested citizens to go through the Sh4.84 trillion spending plan tabled in Parliament the previous day.

CCTV footage broadcast on Kenyan television shows the first group of attackers arriving mid‑morning on motorbikes, forcing their way into the cathedral grounds and heading toward the halls where the meeting was underway. Cathedral guards and police pushed them back toward Valley Road and the gathering resumed once the close was cleared.

A second group entered a short time later. Witnesses say they shouted down speakers, pushed some participants around and snatched phones and other valuables before melting away.

“State‑hired goons stormed a post‑budget dialogue forum at All Saints Cathedral,” TI‑Kenya said in a statement, adding that “one suspect arrested at the scene confessed to having been sent by a government official.” KHRC called the raid “a deliberate attempt to intimidate civil society actors engaged in budget oversight” and reported that a man detained near the cathedral gate “named a political sponsor” on camera. Those claims have yet to be tested in court, but they set the frame through which many Kenyans now view the incident.

All Saints’ Cathedral, seat of the Diocese of All Saints’ Cathedral in the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK), has hosted national prayer days, reconciliation meetings and election‑season dialogues for decades. A budget forum in the cathedral halls sat squarely in that tradition.

The National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), where the ACK is a major player, took the lead in the public response. NCCK General Secretary the Rev. Chris Kinyanjui called the incident “a blatant and despicable desecration of All Saints Cathedral, a sacred place of worship, by state‑sponsored goons.” The council demanded that the Inspector‑General of Police “reveal, arrest and prosecute those behind the incident,” including “the government official who was named as the sponsor of the goons.”

Anglican primate Jackson Ole Sapit denounced the storming of the close. Churches, he said, are “places for worship, reflection and honest dialogue, not theatres for political thuggery,” and he urged the authorities to make sure “no church is ever again turned into a battleground simply because it opens its doors for public debate.”

Other church and inter‑faith leaders quickly lined up behind that message. Ecumenical and inter‑religious coalitions warned that the use of hired muscle to break up meetings, “even when held in church compounds,” points to a shrinking civic space as the country moves toward the 2027 polls. The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) described the disruption at All Saints’ as “a direct attack on the constitutional rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, public participation, and civic engagement,” and called for “a thorough, independent investigation” into both the men on the motorbikes and anyone who sent them.

The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) has also weighed in, using the All Saints’ raid as a key example in a June statement on what it called the resurgence of “goonism.” Referring explicitly to “the recent disruption of a meeting at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi,” the bishops warned that violent actions “within the sanctuary of a church” are “a blatant desecration of a sacred place of worship and a severe violation of the constitutional rights to freedom of assembly, association, and access to information.” “We are afraid there is a growing concern that ‘goonism’ is receiving official support,” they said. “Can government dispel this suspicion from the minds of citizens? Is there political will to deal with the menace of ‘goonism’ or is it in the interest of the political elite?”

The National Police Service says it is investigating the incident. In a statement after the cathedral raid, police said officers had “swiftly moved in to restore order” and confirmed that at least two suspects had been arrested. Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations are “analyzing CCTV footage from All Saints Cathedral and surrounding buildings with the aim of identifying and apprehending all other individuals involved,” the statement added.

Interior and National Administration Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki called the attack “extremely unfortunate and unacceptable” and promised that “all perpetrators will be brought to book.” Officials have also spoken more broadly about cracking down on political “goonism” in Nairobi, including proposals to strengthen metropolitan policing and curb the use of organized criminal gangs during rallies and public meetings.

For now, however, most of the men whose faces and motorcycle plates appear in the cathedral CCTV clips are still at large. No public charges have been announced against any alleged political sponsor, despite civil society’s claim that a suspect in custody named a government official as the person who sent them. Church and legal voices warn that if this ends with a few low‑level arrests and no movement higher up, the message to the country will be that you can storm a church, disrupt a meeting and walk away.

For the Anglican Church of Kenya, the raid on All Saints’ brings two issues into sharp focus. The first is whether churches can continue to host civic forums—about budgets, elections or anything else—without becoming soft targets for hired gangs. ACK leaders have so far answered “yes,” arguing that the Church must not retreat from public life, even as cathedrals and parish churches quietly review how they secure events held on their grounds.

The second is whether the state sees church compounds as places to be protected or simply as convenient stages for political violence. Until arrests are made, the church is left in doubt as to the answers.