Internal wrangles have disrupted operations at the Pentecostal Assemblies of God (PAG) national headquarters at Nyang’ori in Vihiga County.
This is after area County Commissioner, Susan Waweru, deployed police officers to the premises, to bar church leaders from holding a planned meeting.
Waweru cited security concerns as the reason for the move which forced the over 130 clergy men to settle for Tigoi PAG church, where they decided to barricade the Kisumu-Kakamega road in protest.
“This is just a prayer meeting like any other. We have invited over 5, 000 pastors from all over the country. We are not armed therefore we don’t understand why the police are blocking us from accessing our premises,” PAG Governing Council Chairman Stephen Ganira lamented.
PAG General Superintendent (GS) Patrick Lihanda was locked up in his office during the entire altercation.
The leaders blamed their woes on Pastor Nathaniel Ondego, the administrator of the pastor’s retirement benefits scheme, accusing him of embezzling the kitty and using police officers to frustrate the rest of the leadership fraternity.
“It is very unfortunate that one man is using pastors’ money to hold the church at ransom,” Bahati PAG Church overseer Pastor Cornelius Simiyu.
Simiyu noted that Ondengo had not tabled financial statements for the retirement fund during previous annual general meetings and this had raised suspicions that Ondengo is mismanaging the funds and also using the same savings to payoff police officers for his own benefit.
In his own defence, Pastor Ondengo stated that the pastors’ fund is intact and that he played no part in the deployment of police officers to the PAG headquarters.
Police are now on high alert following reports that the disgruntled church members and leaders supporting Ondengo were planning to clash at a meeting meant to discuss the removal of Ondengo as the fund administrator.
“For security reasons we shall not allow the meeting to go on as planned. We have deployed enough officers to ensure that the order is enforced,” Vihiga County Police Commander (CPC) Hassan Barua said.