# Mungiki · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

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The Cult Dossier · No. 121 · Political / Terror
Mungiki
—
late 1980s – present (banned) · Central Kenya; Nairobi
XII. THE WIDER FIELD — CONCISE ENTRIES
Fully religious — Kikuyu traditionalist revival turned criminal militia
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- late 1980s Emerges among displaced Kikuyu youth; Wikipedia dates it to 1989.
- 2002 Banned by the Kenyan government.
- 2007–2008 Deeply involved in post-election ethnic violence.
- 2007–2009 A police campaign kills large numbers of suspected members, many extrajudicially; human rights groups put the deaths over five years above 8,000, a figure that has not been independently confirmed. In March 2009 two human rights defenders investigating the killings are murdered.
- 27 OCTOBER 2009 MAINA NJENGA is ACQUITTED OF MURDER for lack of evidence. That year he converts to Christianity and declares the movement finished. It keeps resurfacing, far weaker than at its height.
- 31 DECEMBER 2023 Police arrest NEARLY 300 SUSPECTED MEMBERS in Nyeri County, believed to be travelling to a thanksgiving rally organised by Njenga.
- 11 NOVEMBER 2024 THE PROSECUTOR WITHDRAWS THE CASE AGAINST NJENGA and eleven others, which followed a May 2023 raid on his homes and included counts of leading the outlawed Mungiki and of possessing illegal firearms and drugs. Twenty of the twenty-eight witnesses would not cooperate, and police had failed to book the suspects properly. Njenga says political rivals framed him.
### Its people
### Philip Alston
—
UN Special Rapporteur who documented the Mungiki killings · born 1950 · active 2009
Before the law. UN mandate holder.
Where things stand. LIVING AND IN POST — confirmed August 2026. He is JOHN NORTON POMEROY PROFESSOR OF LAW at New York University School of Law and CO-CHAIR of its Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. ONE THING TO KEEP IN THE PAST TENSE: he was UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON EXTREME POVERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS FROM 2014 TO 2020, reporting on among others the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Saudi Arabia and Chile. THAT MANDATE ENDED IN 2020 and he does not hold it now. His file records that the state response to a violent group can itself become the atrocity.
- February 2009 Conducts the Kenya mission as UN Special Rapporteur.
- 5 March 2009 King'ara and Oulu, who assisted the mission, are shot dead in Nairobi.
- 2009 Publishes the report documenting systematic extrajudicial killings; calls for the police commissioner's resignation.
- 2009 The Kenyan government rejects the findings.
Checked 2026-08-24 · living: health details are kept at home
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