How Makenzi's Kwa Binzaro cult operated in plain sight

After her rescue from the jaws of death in Shakahola in 2023, Sharleen Temba maintained a low profile. She surrounded herself with a few friends who gave her moral and spiritual support.

Later, the number of visitors to her place swirled. The soft talks and prayers turned louder, and visitors from upcountry started to flock to Malindi to visit Temba or her other friends.

Meanwhile, Temba, according to detectives, started to visit suspects arrested over the death of over 400 followers of controversial pastor Paul Makenzi’s Good News International (GNI).

“She leveraged people’s empathy for her to get close to the suspects. She duped even security agents who monitored her, ” said a detective privy to the investigation into the Kwa Binzaro cult.

Inside Shimi la Tewa, detectives claim, Makenzi also lured prison wards into his cult. Like at Temba’s home, Makenzi’s bromance with the prison officers started as a simple prayer.

In the recent search, the detective recovered SIM cards in one of the prison cells where some of Makenzi’s followers are detained at Shimo La Tewa Maximum Prison.

The phone call records have reportedly revealed how Makenzi was in constant phone calls with his followers in custody in different prisons on the coast with the help of prison officers.

“Makenzi used to call his followers in different prisons using these numbers to order them to pray and 'encourage them to stay strong in court,” said a detective.

In the phone records, detectives claim that Makenzi has constant communication with Temba.

"She remained an active member of Makenzi even after the 2023 rescue. She maintained close contact with Makenzi even when he was in prison," said another detective privy to the investigation.

Detectives say that Makenzi continued to guide and inspire his followers from behind bars and maintained contact with some of his loyalists, like Ms Temba, through phone calls.

It has emerged that Ms Temba started the Kwa Binzaro cult in 2024. She was allegedly tasked by Makenzi to regroup his followers and recruit new members to the cult.

Temba bought a five-acre piece of land at Kwa Binzaro village inside the expansive Chakama Ranch, a few kilometres from the infamous Shakahola forest where Makenzi operated.

Kwa Binzaro has been declared a crime scene following the discovery of graves, a body and bones at the homestead. At least 11 shallow mass graves have been identified.

“With her as the ringleader, she formed a team of leaders she oversaw to spread the extremist teachings. This time around, the team went an extra mile to erase their tracks,” said a DCI officer.

The Kwa Binzaro cult’s modus operandi was devised to avoid the hawk-eye of the security team protecting the crime scene of the starvation cult at Shakahola.

It is believed that those who joined the Kwa Binzaro cult were radicalised in Malindi before they were they took their 'final journey' at night to the dying bays in the forest.

This was to avoid raising suspicion from members of the public and the police.

“A few secluded houses in Malindi were used for the preaching and praying for those who still believed in Makenzi’s Good News International doctrine.

“The victims were directed to those houses by Makenzi through phone calls or word of mouth through his agents. One had to 'graduate' before being taken to Kwa Binzaro,” said the source.

It added: "those to traveled to the forest had accepted that they must die to go to heaven.”

At Kwa Binzaro, the followers built their makeshift houses. However, unlike at Shakahola, they were dispersed, and each person’s home was very far from each others to avoid interaction.

Our sources said that the Kwa Binzaro cult was not easy to detect amid questions on how Makenzi was able to beat the intelligence service and open an offshoot of GNI in Shakahola.

It is now emerging that, unlike the Shakahola cult, members of its Kwa Binzaro offshoot left Bibles and other belongings in Malindi.

''They left almost all their belongings in Malindi, including the Bibles. When we searched their houses, we did not find anything apart from a few pieces of clothes. They did this to erase any evidence that would link them to the cult,” said another senior police officer.

Meanwhile, unlike in the Shakahola massacre in 2023, where members used to meet during burials and celebrate the departure of one of their own to ‘heaven’, the interment at Kwa Binzaro was discreet.

In 2023, Mwakenzi allegedly held an elaborate burial ceremony in what was christened “harusi ya Mwisho”. At Kwa Binzaro, graves are also sunken deep in the thicket and thorny bushes.

During the 2023 tour inside the Shakahola, we found out that graves were dug just outside the homestead, which made it easier for the authorities to identify them.

Yesterday, we established that detectives from the DCI Nairobi were using geolocation devices to identify graves beneath patches of disturbed soil hidden under thick scrubs.

It appears that the perpetrators of the Kwa Binzaro went the extra mile to erase their tracks by flattening the soil, covering mounds with fresh vegetation, and planting dense bushes to hide the burial sites.

Kilifi County Criminal Investigations Officer (CCO) Robert Kiinge came to learn about the Kwa Binzaro cult from Jairus Otieno Odere and his wife, who lost their six children.

It is reported that Otieno’s wife, Lilian Akinyi, became emotional after their last child died and started nagging her husband until the two were banished and isolated from the rest of the group in the forest.

“It's during this time that they asked for help, and they contacted their brother, who then notified the police,” said Kiinge, who said they raided the place immediately after the report was made.

“When the brother notified the police, that’s when they went and raided the homestead on July 19, recovered one body and skulls, and rescued four frail individuals,” he said.

He added, "Otieno and his wife had been reported missing in Siaya County along with their six children. We have been able to interrogate them, and the wife has opened up and narrated how the children died, starting with the lastborn, who was about a year and a half old.'' Kiinge said.

Tembe, Otieno, Akinyi, Kahonzi Katana, Loice Zawadi, Safari Kenga, Karisa Fondo, Gona Charo Kalama, Kahindi Kazungu, Thomas Mukonwe, and James Kahindi are in police custody.

Human rights groups say that so far, 66 people have been reported missing in the Kwa Binzaro cult, but detectives say the number could be higher.

Kwa Binzaro village is approximately 2 kilometres before the Shakaloha police command centre, where security agents have been stationed since the discovery of bodies inside the Shakahola forest in 2023.

The village, which is part of the 50,000-acre Chakama Ranch, is also 50 kilometres from the nearest police station – Langobaya police station.

Kwa Binzaro is found in Chakama Division, Shakahola sublocation. This area, however, has no assistant county commissioner or assistant chief.

Due to the vastness of the area, the government had promised to deploy the administrative officers, which it has yet to do since 2023.

Locals such as Katana Tamara believe that the Kitawaramba phrase Mackenzie uttered when he was arrested in April 2023 was not comical but that he meant it.

“Kitawaramba was not just a comical phrase but a threat to all of us that he is untouchable. The government intelligence has failed us again, even as we exhume other bodies in Binzaro,” he said.

But security agencies are on the spot again, as the latest deaths happened 2.5 km from where the Shakahola is in Malindi, Kilifi County. The two cults thrived in the gospel of cataclysm.

Officers from the Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) have found 11 fresh shallow mass graves in the village, a few kilometres from the scene of the infamous Shakahola cult that claimed over 450 lives.

Human rights activists point to the systematic failures in the security intelligence community for the recurrence of the cult in the same area.

The three independent teams that investigate, including the Senate, the Shakahola massacre sanction all security officers whose acts of commission or omission abetted or aided the Shakahola tragedy.

Meanwhile, homicide detectives and forensic experts from DCI headquarters in Nairobi, led by the head of the Homicide Division at the DCI, Martin Nyuguto, started to exhume bodies at Kwa Binzaro village yesterday.

Makenzi is among 31 people facing charges of murder, child torture, and terrorism following the death of over 400 people inside the Shakahola forest.

In April this year, police in Malindi arrested a pastor in the Chakama area after the death of one of his followers at his church premises.

Locals fear that while the graves of Shakahola may have been closed, the ideologies that led to such horror may still be lingering in the vast Chakama Ranch.