For many Kenyans, Thursday April 2 was meant to be a beautiful day. As with the Christian traditions, many of the Garissa University students were preparing for the long weekend. The Easter holidays would give them an opportunity to relax, away from the long hours in class. This was not to be. In the early hours of that fateful day, gunfire rang out. What followed was a near 15-hour siege – a massacre that left 147 people dead.
Hours into the attack, the Islamic insurgents, Al Shabaab, claimed responsibility.
Most of the dead were students, described by government officials and families as ‘the hope of our country’. Five service men too succumbed. Kenyan officials say four of the attackers were killed, while five Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers lost their lives. Six other suspects have been charged in court with the killings.
Tales from the survivors are chilling.
Cynthia Cherotich hid in her room as the militants swept through the corridors of the university.
“I had to drink body lotion to survive. I was thirsty,” she says.
“It was a terrible experience. We hid in the closet the entire period until we heard voices we thought were from the Kenya Defence Forces,” says another student, Mary Njeri.
“Still, we were not sure. So I asked my roommates, who we were hiding with, whether to go out and die or stay in the closet and still die there. She told me that if it was our day to die, we would rather die outside. When we got out, it was about 2.30PM. We met the KDF and they rescued us,” she says.
The students say there was a power failure the previous night. They thought the initial gun shots was the sound of an electrical fault. Soon after, the screams of the dying echoed throughout the building.
The attack, police investigations reveal, was planned well in advance with the help of some of the university’s non-teaching staff. Mohammed Abdirahim Abdullahi, the mastermind behind the attack, was a University of Nairobi law graduate and the son of a government chief from Mandera.
At the Chiromo Mortuary in Nairobi, where parents identified and collected bodies of their loved ones, grief filled every breath. They blame the Islamist militants and the Kenyan government.
The rescue mission for the students has been described as bungled. For close to 15 hours, the insurgents roamed the corridors of the institution. They herded the students in rooms and shot them.
Survivors had to answer questions about Islamic teachings to stay alive. Most of those killed were Christians.
An elite squad of the Kenyan police force joined late in the day and in less than half an hour, the siege was over. Interestingly, the cabinet secretary in charge of internal security and inspector general of police arrived at the scene hours before the elite squad.
The squad based in Nairobi arrived aboard two fixed-wing aircraft, while part of the contingent travelled 390 kilometers by road to the college. One of the police planes that should have been used for the rescue operation was in the coastal city of Mombasa to pick up a daughter in law of one of the police commandants.
This has led to the government taking some of the blame.
“Institutions of learning should be the safest place for our children. Now where do they turn to? Our government should have done better. All these lives could not have been lost if they acted on the intelligence,” says a family member of a student that was killed.
Five days before the Garissa attack, several alerts of possible Al Shabaab attacks in the country had been issued by embassies. On the eve of the attack, at the Diaspora Investment Conference in Nairobi, President Uhuru Kenyatta dismissed the warnings and accused the embassies of economic sabotage.
“I have not heard the British issue travel advisories against other European capitals,” said Kenyatta. “We want to send a clear message that they will not intimidate us with these threats.”
In the face of the attack, Kenyatta cut a figure of a head of state in charge. Addressing the nation, the president ordered for the training of 10,000 service men and women whose recruitment was challenged in court. He said he would take responsibility. One week later, the executive order was rescinded and a fresh recruitment ordered.
Tellingly, in March, a number of Kenyan universities had put their students on high alert for a possible terror attack. The notices urged students to be vigilant within the institutions and co-operate with security agents regarding any suspicions.
The Garissa attack is the second deadliest terror attack on Kenyan soil. In 1998, the United States Embassy in Nairobi was bombed, killing over 200 people. The bombings were claimed by the then Osama bin Laden-led Al Qaeda terror group. The attack at Westgate Mall in 2013 resulted in the death of 67 people. In between, however, there have been several Al Shabaab-linked attacks on Kenyan soil.
Al Shabaab claims the attacks, and abduction of tourists along the Kenyan coastline, are retaliation for the KDF crossing the border into Somalia. Victims are told that Kenya will not know peace until its troops are withdrawn.
“We need to withdraw the troops from Somalia and have them pitch camp in the vicinity of the Wajir region [near the Somalian border]. Let them set up a combat base there,” says Andrew Frankline, Managing Director of Small Wars Advisory Services.
However, the government insists that the withdrawal of troops is as good as surrender.
Since October 2011, data indicate that Kenya has been attacked by Al Shaabab, or militants affiliated to it, more than 135 times. This translates to at least nine attacks every month. Government agencies report that it has resulted in over 400 deaths and over 1,000 injuries.
The attacks continue to ruin Kenya’s tourism industry.
“When we thought it could not get any worse it did. Tourism is suffering, it has been tough,” says Agatha Juma, Chief Executive Officer of Kenya Tourism Federation.
It might be a while before Kenya, and its economy, recovers.

‘If It Was Our Day To Die, We Would Rather Die Outside’

Ethiopia boasts a kaleidoscope of cultures, from animistic tribes in the southern Rift Valley to its orthodox Christian heritage in the northern highlands. This ancient land offers both the intrepid traveler and religious pilgrim an opportunity to sample the variants of Abrahamic religions practised with unique zeal.
The Kingdom of Axum in what is present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was one of the first Christian countries in the world, having officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the fourth century. Ethiopia is mentioned over 37 times in King James’ version of the Bible. Today, Ethiopia continues to predominantly be Christian (63%) and the majority of Christians are Tewahedo Christians, who belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
I could feel the deep influence of Christianity traveling around the country. Both Islam and Christianity have flourished here side by side for centuries.
Lalibela, a remote town located at an altitude of 2,800 meters, is known around the world for its churches carved from living rock. The 13 rock-cut structures dating back to the 12th century are said to represent Jerusalem. The rock churches are connected to one another by labyrinthine tunnels with a small river in the middle, which the Ethiopians named the Jordan, in keeping with the idea of Jerusalem.
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The churches were not constructed in a traditional way but rather were hewn from the living rock of monolithic blocks. These blocks were further chiseled out, forming doors, windows, columns, various floors, roofs etc. In addition, several passages, drainage trenches, catacombs and hermit residences were also carved out. Proclaimed as an UNESCO World Heritage site, the churches of Lalibela are also a significant engineering feat, given that they are built atop artesian well formations that bring the water up to the top of the mountain ridge on which the city sits.
Arriving at the Church of Bet Madane, the largest monolithic church in the world (carved out of live rock), I found throngs of pilgrims occupying the many niches in deep prayer. The church is cut 15 meters down, its roof forming the shape of a Greek cross. The roof of this church is leveled with the ground and reached by stairs descending into narrow trenches. Worshippers were crouched, seated and often times standing, in deep individual prayer, following passages from the Bible.
Pursuing one’s religious beliefs in deep silence and quietitude in an amazing setting is something I will never forget.
In one particular church, I found the remains of thousands of Coptic pilgrims. There is a huge pit of strewn bones, skulls and shockingly well-preserved bodies of people who walked from Egypt and Syria to be buried in the church 1,500 years ago.
Upon visiting other churches, I noticed many pilgrims were slumbering in various nooks of these dark churches, tired from fasting and listening to chants all day. There were numerous nuns in traditional head covering. The scene was surreal and I could feel myself transported back in time.
It is said that there are a 1,000 monks in Lalibela amongst a population of 10,000. The priests of many temples were proud to display the treasures of the temples, stored in huge wooden cabinets hidden behind silk curtains. They include beautifully-illustrated Bibles written in Aramaic, and icons, silver crosses and ritual silver vessels used for worship.
Next stop was Axum, considered to be the holiest city. The city was the original capital of the Kingdom of Axum (1st-6th AD). Axumites developed a distinctive architecture exemplified by giant obelisks, the oldest of which date from 5000–2000 BC.
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The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims that the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum houses the Biblical Ark of the Covenant in which lie the Tablets of Law upon which the Ten Commandments are inscribed. Fascinated by such a possibility, I entered the church and sat down with the large gathering of pilgrims, enjoying and appreciating the beautiful paintings inside this male-only enclave.
A religious land and a deeply religious people in a very ancient landscape is what I mainly observed traveling over 1,000 km inside the country. The beautiful smiles of the children and the elegantly-draped women who were glad to talk and be photographed were an added bonus. Ethiopia is still an unexplored gem. Boasting nine World Heritage sites, amazing religious traditions, world-class archeological sites and a host of beautiful people, Ethiopia is an ideal stopover, especially during Easter.

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Where History And Faith Meet

As the founder, creative director and on-stage conductor of super gospel group Joyous Celebration, Lindelani Mkhize is as synonymous with the music industry as the microphone itself. The group is the biggest and longest surviving music entity in South Africa. Each year it creates a bidding war with giant corporate sponsors, sells out seven thousand-seater arenas in South Africa and it has a footprint across the continent.
“The idea to create Joyous Celebration came to me after the first South African democratic election in 1994. I felt like we needed a music entity that was going to celebrate all the good and positive things we were going through as a country. I also wanted to create a musical entity that would help train and nurture young gospel artists while making gospel music contemporary,” says Mkhize.
His passion for gospel music, and all things church-based, started early in life. Mkhize tells a story of accompanying his staunchly Christian mother to church choir practice and beating out the choir’s melodies on the pews.
“After a while of going with my mother to her choir practices, some members noticed me and decided I had a musicality in me and that the choir should give me a spot, so they did.”
Growing up in the choir, Mkhize knew that music was what he wanted to do with his life, but his family was not supportive of him pursuing it as a viable career option.
“I found myself at a Technikon in KwaZulu-Natal after matric, enrolled in a national diploma in Chemical Engineering. Needless to say, I was very unhappy. I came to a point where I decided to change the course I was studying, and decided to keep this fact from the family. The shock on my mother’s face when she found out at my graduation that I had changed courses was priceless to say the least!”
“Because I had always been really good at Mathematics as well, I got a job as a music and maths teacher at one of the local high schools in Umlazi. I got very involved in the local township music scene, and I ended up organizing music groups and putting musical acts together,” says Mkhize.
Enter famed music producer Chicco Twala.
“I got introduced to Chicco through my efforts within the township music scene. To date, I can safely declare that he is the one who taught me all the finer details of the music industry. The next step I took was to leave the school where I was teaching and work with Chicco to set up his own record label, where I was to spend the next three years,” he says.
It was not long before record company PolyGram spotted and poached him from under Twala’s wing.
“I did everything from marketing, talent scouting, producing to sales and promotions. This is when the Kwaito music genre started really emerging, and I discovered and worked with the biggest names in that genre. Acts such as Oskido, M’du Masilela and Joe Nina were all under my leadership, and together we created this youth music culture that literally swept the country off its feet,” says Mkhize.
Because Kwaito had raised PolyGram’s market share considerably, Sony International started engaging Mkhize in talks to start the entertainment giant’s domestic operations.
“It was in the mid-1990s that I joined Sony as a general manager, with the purpose of heading up a brand new South African division. I felt that I had set trends within the youth music culture and that it was now time to bite into a new challenge,” he says.
At that point, Jazz music had been written off as an extremely niche market with slim to no chance of ever selling record-worthy numbers. Mkhize came in to considerably change this.
“I immediately took it upon myself to start what I call the ‘Jazz Revival’. I signed Sibongile Khumalo and Hugh Masekela. And both these artists sold in excess of 300,000 copies each, with Masekela’s first album, after having returned from exile, going platinum six times—a feat that had never been heard of in these parts before.”
AfroPop was next on Mkhize’s sights. Here, he was to discover crack bands such as Mafikizolo, Bongo Maffin and Malaika—music groups that were to also surpass the 300,000 sales mark—to usher in another youth cultural movement. Soon Mkhize felt that he had achieved all he had hoped to, and the need to return to his gospel roots nagged him.
“Sony had grown from 0 to about 23% of the local music market share. I needed new challenges, so I focused my energy into growing Joyous Celebration, as well [as] starting my Lindelani Mkhize Entertainment (LME) company, which specializes in using music as a marketing tool for big brands and corporates.
“Through LME we have married big brands with musicians, brought big name international artists to the country—gospel singers such as CeCe and BeBe Winans and Yolanda Adams to name but a few. LME has also hosted large-scale events such as the Durban Jazz Festival, as well as the SABC’s South African Traditional Music Awards (SATMA) which President Jacob Zuma graces each year,” says Mkhize.
Once again, a top record company wanted to lure Mkhize into discussions. This time it was 2010 and PolyGram, now trading as Universal Music Group, wanted him to join their team as group executive director in charge of artists and repertoire (A&amp;R).
“In all honesty, one of the main reasons I agreed to come back from doing my own thing, was that I had noticed for a while that a lot of artists had lost faith in big record companies. Many musicians were signed to their own smaller entities, because of a fear that they would be nothing but a catalogue number at a big record label; I decided my next challenge would be to restore musicians’ faith in major music establishments. Right now, two years back at Universal Music, I can safely say that my team and I have managed to make Universal Music the record company of choice for any artist,” he says.
With three lifetime achievement award nods from every notable awards body in the South African music and entertainment industry, at the age of 46, Mkhize’s hunger for the next big win, and passion for music, has cemented him as a music pioneer.
Mkhize is currently in studio producing Grammy-award winning Soweto Gospel Choir’s upcoming album. His colleague, managing director of Universal Music, Randall Abrahams describes Mkhize’s way with music as “awe-inspiring”. The next thing Mkhize hopes to get right, is the juggling act between all the professional hats he wears and his family of a wife and four kids.

Tag: Christian

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

‘If It Was Our Day To Die, We Would Rather Die Outside’

Where History And Faith Meet

Gospel, Good As Gold