From Child Soldier to Servant of God

An Interview  with the Reverend Daniel Ocheso, conducted by Jacob Doyle

The Reverend Daniel Daniel Ocheso is an evangelical minister living in Kenya.  Years ago, at age 15, he was kidnapped by The Lord’s Resistance Army, also known as the Lord’s Resistance Movement, a rebel group and heterodox Christian cult which operates in northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The group trained him as a soldier and held him for more than 5 years, forcing him into combat in Congo and Uganda. Eventually, he managed to escape and return to his home in Kenya where he ministers to youth and advises them not to join militant groups such as Al Shabaab, which actively recruits in Kenya.

Q: Please tell us about your background and current activities.

A: I’m in Nairobi. It’s safe for me here. Now I am an evangelist minister. I have never been to Somalia. I was kidnapped when I was 15 years old by a rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and was forced to work as a soldier for five years in Uganda and Congo. After that I was able to flee to my country of Kenya.

Q: What experience have you had in dealing with the violent extremist group, Al Shabaab?

A: Becoming an evangelist corps preacher has given me the right direction to follow. In 2011, I was offered to take money from Al Shabaab recruiters to go to Somalia to work as a trainer, but I refused the offer. After I refused the offer, I reported the matter to our country, to Kenyan authorities. And several times, when I went to the police to report the matter, I got arrested. But their investigations demonstrated my innocence and my name is clear with the police..

Q: Please describe the nature of your current work.

A: My work is to keep our youth going in the right direction. To impress on them not to accept the promises of money from such groups as Al-Shabaab. But such groups do have some popularity among a portion of the population in Kenya, they are finding young people and offering them money and promising them a good life, so many among our youth are joining Al-Shabaab every day, to go from Kenya to Somalia. I have been working to stop this, and to give these youth the right direction to follow.

Q: Please explain your activities to prevent Kenyan youth from joining Al-Shabaab.

A: There are recruiters in Kenya who are working with Al-Shabaab. They promise the good life to Kenya’s youth.  They use money to buy men, they make the promises and give them, like, 400,000 Kenyan shillings. And the recruits, desperate for money, then go to join that militant group. But you know, there’s no one who comes out alive.

That’s why my stand has been to keep our youth in our country, to stop them from joining terror groups or any militia group. Yes, I have stopped several of them from going. You know, the big issue, the government could have supported me but they did not do it. I have tried to express myself, even through media airplanes, TV and radio. I have spoken alone, but if I can get someone to give me the support to follow this view, then this country would be saved: no youth would go out from here, or from East Africa to join terror or militia groups.

I stop the boys from going by telling them my story of what happened to me. I told them that I was kidnapped at the age of 15 years and that that event stopped my destiny, I had at that time the ambition to become a lawyer. But after I was kidnapped, and taken to Uganda then later to Congo, five years of my life were taken from me. So, I tell these boys of my experience, what happened to me through my personal testimony. “Don’t go to Somalia and join this group Al Shabaab, because this is the problem and these people are after your life, because they are using you as a slave. So, don’t go there.”

I have successfully counseled more than 100 used to stay in Kenya. Some of them are now in universities and others are doing jobs in technical areas.

Q: Have your efforts been successful?

A: There are some Kenyan youths who left Kenya for Somalia and then came back and there are others who are planning to go but did not I was able to reach them before they left. They refused the offer from Al-Shabab. They had been recruited by Al-Shabab to join, but I persuaded them not to go. Many of them I invited to come work and learn in my music studio in Mombasa, to develop their talents and learn to work with music. Now many of them are singers. Some are doing evangelical work, like me.

Q: Tell us more about your story.

A: I was kidnapped in 1996. In Uganda I was trained to be a fighter. So I was there and in Congo from 1996 until 2000. And then I managed to escape, back to my country, Kenya, and to start a new life. In Kenya I attended Bible college and I started doing some small business.  After that, I went to work with one of the companies in Mombasa. Then I became what I am now, a preacher. Also, I am performing and teaching gospel music here in Kenya. So that is the platform I am using with these endangered youths. They have to learn more from me and they fully grasp my experience and learn from it and say to themselves: here stands a man who was kidnapped at 15, and is now trying to give us the new life, to give us the good direction.  This way most of these youths, boys and some girls, can decide to pattern their lives, to work and join me, to follow my direction, and that is how I am teaching you youth in Kenya, and Mombasa.

Q: How have you been spreading your message?

A: I have been covered in the media, both in the newspapers and on TV.  Some of the media personalities have invited me several times to their shows, and they believed I am setting a good example to the youths who are being tempted to join Al-Shabab or other militia groups, to hear where I have been or where I was going.

Q: What problems have you encountered in trying to extend your message in Kenya?

The worst thing, is that the government is now against me, even after I was arrested again and later released. In their investigation of me, they cleared me of all crimes, either related to war or matters of ordinary crime they found that I am what I claim to be, a preacher. That’s why, I am coming out clear without any thoughts of reading used somewhere untoward.

I have been asking the Kenyan Government or others in Kenya to support me. I continue to work to stop youths from joining Al-Shabab. I myself have never been a member of Al-Shabab. The masters of Al-Shabab wanted to recruit me from our country, and offered to pay me large amounts of money to help them in their recruitment and training. I have refused their offers several times, despite offers of millions of shillings. I have said no. As an evangelical preacher, I have no time or inclination to send our youth to end their innocence. With my refusal, I try to set an example to the youth who receive similar offers. Later, Al Shabaab had the intention to kill me in Mombasa. This is why I have fled from Mombasa with my three associates. Now we are somewhere in Nairobi. So now I am struggling to go in the media to see if there is somebody who will support my work with the funds needed to have more success, for example to rent a house.

After I was in the newspapers, I was arrested the same day. How can you come to arrest me without any evidence? Me, who is giving the youth the right direction? Teaching the youth the right way, to abandon every wrong activity, and to follow the right way? Because in Kenya, if you don’t have money, and somebody comes and offers it to you to, to leave the country, it can be very tempting. But I said no, because of my Christian stand and because of my experience, it is only God who rescued me from the bad place where I had slipped for five years, and that is why I could not allow anybody to follow the same way or to take any you or anybody to connect him or her to that level. Now I am suffering because I said no.