I pulled tail in class, but controlled Sh4.2 billion - Deya

By The Nairobian Reporter | 6yrs ago | 7 min read

About 20 years ago, Bishop Gilbert Deya, the ‘miracle babies preacher’, controlled assets worth Sh4.2 billion.

Deya, a one-time stone mason turned evangelist, was released from Kamiti Maximum Prison ten months ago after being extradited from the UK last year on child trafficking charges.

It had taken the government 12 years to have Deya face trial but he fought extradition for fear he would be tortured and sentenced to death.

Deya now pleads innocence and points accusing fingers at his wife, Mary Deya, for the troubles which include five counts of stealing five underage children in five years to 2004 from a house in Nairobi’s Mountain View Estate.

Deya, 66, is now seeking a divorce from the woman he married when he was 22, she 14. Deya was extradited on August 8, 2017, and after cooling government porridge for ten months at Kamiti, he was released on a Sh10 million bond.

The Nairobian recently reached out to the man who had a leased plane emblazoned Gilbert Deya Ministries on its ribs.

In issuing directions for the exclusive interview in Syokimau, Nairobi, Deya ’s warm baritone boomed on phone: “Just get to the big blue building and at the gate, they charge Sh120. Tell the guards you are coming to see me, if you don’t tell them that, I will not pay the parking fee for you. Come quickly, I have ordered for fish and ugali. We will share...”

At the height of its powers, the Gilbert Deya Ministries ran two satellite TV stations broadcasting in Africa and Europe, an online radio channel, and churches in London, Liverpool, Manchester and Belgium.

The BBC pegged his annual income at over $800,000 (Sh80 million) by 2015. “Don’t ask me about the jet and helicopter, I won’t speak about it, because that will be bragging, and I am not a show-off...”

He reaches out of the window and points at a brand new Land Cruiser Prado. “That’s the car I drive, but it’s all meaningless to me. I don’t have a single bank account in my name. I can give out that car and I will not feel anything, because God has better plans for me.”

Being imprisoned was a new low for the man who hobnobbed with kings and queens. “I prayed for people and they got healed. I prayed for Queen Elizabeth. I prayed for King Mswati’s family. I prayed for kings and queens. That’s my ordination,” offers Deya.

“The Queen of Swaziland received miracle healing in 2000, she had been sick and had sought treatment in other countries unsuccessfully. She was even unable to walk. I prayed and God healed her. I also prayed for the Queen when there was turbulence in the royal family during the Thatcher years.”

Then life changed when he was extradited from the UK to Kenya on August 8, 2017, over the “miracle babies” saga. Of his ten months at Kamiti, he says: “I found prison life too harsh. I went to the toilet in a bucket, and I was bitten by bed bugs. I had bite marks all over my body, and I decided to do something about it. I built flush toilets in all the cells at Kamiti, I even bought new blankets for everyone. God wanted me to go to Kamiti so that I can change it. If a governor is taken to Kamiti, he will enjoy the facilities I built,” says Deya, now paying the price over the miracle babies for the last 15 years. “I have never been part of the miracle baby saga,” he told The Nairobian.

“My wife was in Nairobi, I was in London. She told me that he had miracle babies. I wasn’t there to see or prove if it’s true.”

**Deya during the interview at his new Church in Pili House, Mombasa Rd [Photo: Courtesy]**

Continues Deya: “She even got pregnant and delivered a baby when I was in London. I don’t know if she cheated on me or it was another miracle baby...How can I be responsible for something that happened in Kenya when I was in the UK?” poses Deya adding that he is separated from Mary and a divorce is on the cards.

“I don’t want to dwell on it, but I have been unjustly treated, but it is all God’s will.” In his palmy days, Deya told The Nairobian that he was controlling £30 million (Sh4.2 billion) in the UK by 1998. From an uninteresting background in Juja where he was born in 1952, Deya had come a long way from pulling the second last tail in school.

“I didn’t finish school. In school, if I tried so hard, I would be second last. I was usually at the bottom come exams. But I focused on the Bible, and God called me in 1967 to serve Him, I have never looked back since,” recalls the 11th of 15 children of Samuel Oyanda Deya, a sisal plantations worker from Bondo working in Juja.

Deya recalls that his journey into the Ministry began in the 1960s when God’s spirit came to him when he was barely 10. “I was seated with my mother when a bright light came on me. I remember exclaiming thus: ‘Mama see Jesus is coming!’

Deya the weak learner dropped out in class seven with a D minus in all the three subjects - English, Mathematics and General Paper. His talent was in business, selling sweets to his classmates and preparing charcoal.

“No sooner was I out of school than I started buying and selling bananas and sugarcane for a profit,” he offers. When Deya was 22, he married Mary Anyango, 14. Their first child, Peter, succumbed to complications of malnutrition when he earned Sh6 a week as a stone cutter at a quarry in Njiru.

“I worked as a stone cutter for two years upon landing in Nairobi from a brief stay in Uganda where I had gone to visit my married sister. I met my wife Mary there, says the man who later got a better-paying job as a toilet cleaner at a garment factory in Nairobi’s Industrial Area. With improved wages of Sh240 per month, he moved to a Sh80 a monthly rent wooden shack in Kibera in 1974.

He walked several kilometres from Kibera to Industrial Area where he cleaned toilets before being upgraded into an office messenger. Lady Luck was also smiling up for him in Kibera where he was made the chairman of Lindi Village.

“I built rental houses that I later sold to buy a matatu,” he remembers adding that his children were all born in Kibera and today they’re all grown up and responsible citizens of the world: Amos lives in Birmingham, Jane in the United States, Daniel is a businessman in Scotland while Rebecca lives in Britain and Deborah is in Dubai. David and Sarah were born in Dandora and are pursuing their university education in the United Kingdom.

“I saw an opening to augment my income via a 120-day credit window to pay for garments taken by low cadre employees. I opened my own garment shop in Ngara to sell clothes that I took on credit and paid for after 120 days. The shop flourished because it was located in a high population area where many Africans and rich Indians lived.”

At work, Deya was promoted to company salesman when the holder retired and his salary nosed north to Sh3, 000 per month. All along, the non-ordained Man of God was a preacher under the United Evangelical Churches of Kenya and in the Chrisco Church headed by the late Apostle Harry Das.

“I soon had enough money and I sold the matatu to start a shoe manufacturing company in Kariobangi. As money flowed, I quit the garment factory.”

But things changed abruptly when the factory caught fire. Everything went up in smoke. He was reduced to zero. “I held huge crusades at Uhuru Park that drew the envy of pastors who accused me of being un-ordained and without education,” recounts Deya adding “I had returned from a trip to the US with a lot of vims that pricked my competitors.”

The complaints prompted an inquiry chaired by Harry Das who found nothing on him and “I subsequently packed my things and left for Britain in keeping with God’s voice that I had heard before the fire, telling me to sell everything and leave for the UK.”

That was in the mid-1990s where he remained until his extradition in 2017. Since leaving Kamiti, Deya is opening a new church, a 2,250 square feet space at Pili Trade Centre on Mombasa Road.

“Gilbert Deya Ministries in Britain is under my son, Amos who is also a pilot. What I want to do here,’ he says spreading his arms across the vast empty hall, “is to start a church. This space is not big enough, I used to fill stadiums before I went to the UK. This is just but a small beginning.”

Deya says he was never ordained but was just called by God “and I am sure I will be acquitted of all charges. My wife was acquitted, so likewise, I will be cleared of all charges.”

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