Gilbert Deya: Life and times of the ‘miracle baby’ giver

Deya died this week in a road accident in Kisumu County that left over 30 people injured. 

The Regional Traffic boss in Kisumu, Peter Maina confirmed that the accident involved 3 vehicles including a Moi University Bus, a Siaya County government SUV and a Toyota Noah driven by the late Deya. The late Deya’s two female passengers sustained serious injuries.

Deya was born in 1937 in Juja, Kiambu, Kenya. The eleventh in a family of fifteen children, he did not make it far in formal schooling due to hardships encountered as a young boy. Deya married his wife Mary in 1958 and together they had 15 children.

The self-styled man-of-God – felt called to God’s ministry and started a church called the "Salvation of Jesus Christ Church" in 1976. Later, he was ordained by the United Evangelical Church of Kenya and later appropriated himself the title “Archbishop”. 

As the nineties beckoned, Deya claimed miracles in having prayed for ladies who could not conceive earlier only for them to get miracle babies; in the streets, he became known as “Archbishop Deya of the Miracle Babies.” 

The Gilbert Deya Ministries was thus founded in 1997 and it caught the attention of many in the country and beyond. Coincidentally, this happened within a period in Kenya that recorded a spike in the loss of many babies from medical facilities around the country and particularly Pumwani Hospital in Nairobi. 

Not only was Nairobi doing great for the ambitious Deya, but over a short time, he had followers as far as the UK, the US and other African countries. Deya was restless and had his sight set far; he saw an opportunity to go international, fame and money were calling.

As the Gilbert Deya Ministry flourished so did the doubts about the so called “miracle babies.” This took a definitive negative turn when the Gilbert Deya Ministry was thrust into an undesirable spotlight in December 1998. 

It was alleged that a 'miracle baby boy' had been born to a woman whose fallopian tubes had been removed by doctors. 

The woman claimed Deya had prayed for her, and that she had conceived despite her condition. Things were not adding up for many but for the Deya Ministry it could not have been better, signs and wonders were following their ministry. 

Talking to, a former neighbor of the Deya’s at Mt View estate, during the late nineties to early 2000’s, there was always a lot of fresh milk delivery apart from the numerous heavily pregnant girls in or around the Deya compound. 

They used to think these were the church members but with hindsight now they now can stitch the dots together concerning the “Miracle Babies”.

In a twisted turn of events for the Deyas, his wife Mary Deya, was arrested at Kenyatta hospital in September 2005. She had walked into the hospital with a day-old boy claiming the infant was her son who had been immaculately conceived courtesy of her husband's prayers. 

The tests that followed conclusively showed the 57-year old Mary Deya had not given birth in the recent past. Doctors and other experts who testified contradicted her claims, they said she was past the child bearing age and hence unable to conceive. Something was definitely amiss but that did not stop the “Baby Miracles” of the Deyas’. 

Some observers back then thought they knew the Deyas’ “miracle babies” story was the “goose that lays the golden eggs”.

Shrugging off all the misgivings and doubts over his Ministry, Deya set up base after the year 2000 in the UK and he glowed in the limelight of his ministry, rumored at one point to be the “most successful” church in the UK. 

The Gilbert Deya Ministry was soon to be found in London, Liverpool, Nottingham, Reading, Manchester, Sheffield and by 2006 they claimed they had acquired a building in Leeds.

The Gilbert Deya Ministries alleged that God, through Deya, had powers to cause infertile women to become pregnant. 

Archbishop Deya claimed that through the power of “prayer and the Lord Jesus" he had helped sterile women to have babies. Interestingly, one woman in the UK claimed to have had three children at different times in the course of just one year. 

Curiously, all the ladies desiring to have children had to travel to Kenya to have them here even if from England. As these claims persisted, suspicion drove a doctor in England to alert the local social services department, which led to court proceedings to protect such babies.

In 2004, Deya Ministries became the subject of investigations by the Charity Commission over child trafficking claims but it did not yield any wrong doing. B

ut as his ministry grew and expanded, so did legitimate concerns about the “miracle babies” even in London. When in 2013 Deya was arrested in the UK and charged rape and attempted rape, it marked the beginning of end for his ministry. 

He was taken before the court in England but was found not guilty on all counts in the year 2014. In 2004, the Charity Commission in England again put the church under investigations and ultimately appointed interim managers to manage the affairs of the church.

Within the same year, in the UK, the High Court in England, after having clamped down on ladies coming back with “miracle babies” from Nairobi; ruled that the babies were victims of child trafficking. 

Justice Ryder ruled that a veiled gimmick was being used to generate funds from “deceived congregations” so as to make money from them. 

The Judge said that the women who paid the “price” were subjected to “serious assault” and then presented with infant babies as their own and the whole scheme remained a “falsehood.”

It did not take long for court warrant to be issued against Gilbert Deya to attend court in Kenya for trafficking babies out of the country. The Kenya police alleged that Deya’s Ministry was actually an organized baby-snatching ring and asked for his extradition from the UK to face charges at home. 

Deya attempted to seek political asylum in Glasgow, Scotland but was arrested by the Scottish police in 2006 and handed over to the Metropolitan Police in London on the strength of the Kenya warrant of arrest. 

They said the Kenya Police were interested in him on charges of child abduction and trafficking. Subsequently, a court order from England facilitated his extradition to Kenya on 8 November 2007, to face five counts of child abduction and human trafficking

The self-styled Archbishop appealed the order against his extradition alleging that he might face torture in Kenya but his case was rejected by both the High Court and the House of Lords in late 2008. 

However, by April 2010, Deya was still holed up in England and on inquiry, the home Office said they were in talks with Deya’s lawyers who alleged hat sending him to Kenya would breach his human rights.

 The wheels of justice grind slow but surely,  in January 2011, the judiciary in Kenya convicted Mary Deya of stealing a baby from Kenyatta National Hospital in 2005 and a giving the police a false statement that she the mother of the said child. She was however acquitted of separate charges of obtaining registration for five children irregularly. 

As Deya’s wife suffered the set back and was headed to prison, British news channels in September 2011, reported that Deya had exhausted all avenues of appeal he would soon be extradited to Kenya. 

However, Archbishop Deya, beyond all odds, would still remain in England until further media reports from England on 21st October 2016 alleged he had applied for a judicial review of his extradition to Kenya. This too would come to naught when his application for a review was rejected.

Like a cat with nine lives, he outran his luck and on August 3, 2017 Deya was extradited to Kenya to face charges of child trafficking. Surprisingly, he allegedly divorced his wife Mary, because her conviction on baby-stealing charges would tarnish his reputation. 

As his case took shape and hearings were scheduled for April 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic hit hard and it took until early 2021 for the case to resume. Deya denied the charges leveled against him and in a verdict passed on June 29, 2023, Justice Ondieki ruled that the prosecution had “failed to establish circumstantial evidence” against the accused and the court acquitted Deya on all charges. 

Archbishop Deya was henceforth released and he immediately stated his desire to return to England but the UK must have been done with him as Deya never set foot there again.

He went on to live quietly in Nairobi at his old Mt View residence operating a number of eateries in the region until his demise. Was he a man of God? A global racketeer or just a businessman? 

Questions only him would answer but now sadly gone, he will have this conversation with his maker. Coming from his humble background, at his exit, maybe he would say veni, vidi, veci! I came, I saw, I conquered!