Faith & Community
Landmark
David Gitari
1937 – 2013
The archbishop who preached against Moi's rule, and survived an attempt on his life
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Kenya Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
He attacked the abolition of the secret ballot from the pulpit, and in 1989 gunmen came to his house. He kept preaching.
David Mukuba Gitari was a Kenyan Anglican archbishop, the third primate of the Anglican Church of Kenya, serving from 1997 to 2002.
He used the pulpit to demand protection for human rights and accountability from government, challenging President Moi in particular over the abolition of the secret ballot in 1987 and the queue-voting of the 1988 elections, and over political killings. In 1989 there was an assassination attempt at his own home, widely believed to have been instigated by the state. He was one of a small group of Kenyan clergy — with Njoya, Okullu and Muge — who were prepared to say so publicly. He died in 2013.
He used the pulpit to demand protection for human rights and accountability from government, challenging President Moi in particular over the abolition of the secret ballot in 1987 and the queue-voting of the 1988 elections, and over political killings. In 1989 there was an assassination attempt at his own home, widely believed to have been instigated by the state. He was one of a small group of Kenyan clergy — with Njoya, Okullu and Muge — who were prepared to say so publicly. He died in 2013.
- Wikipedia — David Gitari
- Dictionary of African Christian Biography — Gitari, Mukuba David
- Historia — "Pulpit power" and the unrelenting voice of Archbishop David Gitari in the democratisation of Kenya, 1986 to 1991
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