Kenya’s Anglican archbishop warned Thursday that the country is heading in the wrong direction, condemning what he called a worsening economy, rising political violence, and the erosion of democratic norms as the 2027 general election approaches. Speaking at a press conference at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi on 24 Sept 2026, the Most Rev. Jackson Ole Sapit delivered the Anglican Church of Kenya’s sharpest public critique of President William Ruto’s administration since the Gen Z protests of 2024.
Archbishop Ole Sapit did not mince words on the economic situation. “It’s time we accept our country is getting worse,” he said, citing unemployment, rising living costs, failing businesses and what he called an increasing tax burden on ordinary Kenyans.
The archbishop questioned the value that citizens received from taxation, saying the church saw little to show for public spending. “Kenyans wonder why they are paying taxes that impoverish citizens, but there is little to see with public resources squandered,” he said. He drew a direct line between fiscal mismanagement and social justice: “Taxation that impoverishes citizens while public resources are squandered becomes an instrument of injustice. Kenyans cannot be asked to sacrifice while corruption prospers.”
Archbishop Ole Sapit singled out the health sector as one of the most visible areas of failure. “Persistent challenges within the health sector have exposed systemic weaknesses and inflicted great suffering upon citizens. SHA isn’t working; the health sector is in shambles,” he said, referring to the Social Health Authority, the government’s flagship universal health coverage scheme launched in 2023.
On education, the church objected to a proposed Basic Education Bill, which it said would effectively transfer control of church-managed schools to the state. “There is a Bill in Parliament that wants to take over religious-managed schools. We condemn that move and call on MPs to put the Bill aside,” Ole Sapit said, adding that the church was concerned by attempts to advance provisions of the bill “without sufficient consensus among stakeholders.”
The press conference came after weeks of escalating public statements by the Archbishop on political violence. On 13 Sept 2026, speaking at the Diocese of Southern Nyanza’s Thanksgiving celebration, Archbishop Ole Sapit had told politicians bluntly: “It is very unfortunate that in the quest for looking for leadership we want to make other people die and we step on the blood of people who are dying every day.”
On Thursday he broadened that warning into an institutional statement. “Kenya must not return to the destructive cycles of ethnic mobilisation, political violence, voter manipulation, intimidation and division. We have seen where this road leads,” he said. The church called on security agencies to act impartially and on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to begin preparations for credible elections without delay. “Peaceful elections are not achieved on polling day. They are built through justice, trust, and preparations long before ballots are cast.”
The statement also condemned the September abduction of Alex Kiprotich, Associate Editor of the Standard Group, which Ole Sapit had addressed separately the previous week alongside a UN-Habitat envoy. He called the targeting of journalists “immoral, unethical and unconstitutional” in a constitutional democracy.
Archbishop Ole Sapit framed the crisis in explicitly theological terms, warning that the choices before Kenya were not merely political. “We can persist in the paths of corruption, greed, violence, division, and institutional decay, or we can choose justice, accountability, truth, and national renewal,” he said. He also dismissed any suggestion of clerical neutrality: “Silence in the face of suffering is not neutrality; it is complicity, yet planting trees while uprooting justice is hypocrisy.”
The church concluded that Kenya was “at a defining moment” and called for repentance and national renewal, warning that “nations do not collapse overnight; they decay when truth is abandoned, justice neglected, and leaders place ambition above service.”