PHOTO: Prof. Egara Kabaji

Five Daystar University researchers have published a paper entitled The Exploitation of Religious Symbols in Political Rhetoric in Kenya: A Critical Perspective , in the International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The researchers led by Prof. Egara Kabaji comprise of Brenda Mueni Wambua, Peter Mutua Mourice, Ann Njogu Wachira and Jared Bravin Menecha.

This is one of the teams of researchers formed in March 2023 during the First Daystar University Grand Academic Seminar in Mombasa.

The International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences is an open access peer-reviewed and refereed journal published by Center for Promotion of Ideas (CPI) and with an impact factor of 6.715.

The paper critically examines literature on the exploitation of religious symbols in political rhetoric in Kenya. Specifically, it focuses on the 2017 general and presidential elections.

The paper unravels the deliberate exploitation of religious symbols by the presidential flag bearers in both the NASA and Jubilee coalitions.

A careful correlation is drawn between the usage of these religious symbols in political rhetoric and the outcome of the general elections.  

Secondary data from texts, such as articles, books and journals; audio-visual data, such as video clips; iconic texts, such as drawings, paintings and hypertexts, such as vlogs and blogs, were mined and synthesized.

Through appropriation of semiotic analysis, meaning was generated, and evaluated under the torchlight of the biblical yardstick to obtain verifiable and valid conclusions.

The paper is meant to serve as a wake-up call to Kenyan society on the exploitation of religious symbols and the implication of these symbols. Moreover, it is designed to arouse a polemical response from the clergy on the preservation of divine language and the place of divine talk.

Hopefully, the paper will sensitize the electorates on use of political rhetoric as a persuasive tool.