Members of the controversial Kavonokya sect at a past event in 2011/FILE – COURTESY
MARIMANTI, Kenya, Sep 4 – Forty-six members of a sect that advised its members to decline being enumerated in the just concluded national census have been jailed for a period ranging from six to twelve months over obstruction.
The Kavonokya sect members were charged with interfering with the week-long exercise that ended on Saturday, August 31.
The 46 are among seven arrested on Thursday last week at Gatue Location where they told enumerators “the process is satanic because we will be counted in heaven.”
Two other members of the sect had been arrested in Kitui last Wednesday for declining to cooperate with enumerators saying, “we’ve been counted in the Bible”.
The Statistics (Amendment) Act (2019,) signed into law by President Uhuru Kenyatta in July prescribes a penalty of Sh500,000 for any person who is charged with obstructing census officials.
The penalty was reviewed from Sh100,000.
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