How Deya preyed on childless women with promise of miracle babies

• One woman allegedly gave birth to more than 10 healthy babies within four years

Macharia wa Gakuru, a writer and broadcaster who has had unprecedented access to controversial Archbishop Gilbert Deya for the last nine years, goes behind the scenes to examine the background to the “miracle babies” saga which won the bishop a brief spell of fame, until his associates were convicted of child trafficking and exposed as frauds. Here are excerpts from Macharia’s new book, “Deya and the Miracle Babies.” The first part ran in the Saturday Nation

Perhaps no saga has attracted more controversy in Archbishop Deya’s ministry than the “miracle babies” debate.

When I first saw photographs of two central actors in the drama, Michael and Eddah Odera and their newborn “miracle babies”, I spoke to Deya.

“Deya, this issue of miracle babies is very controversial,” I told him.

“These miracles are very real,” he retorted.

He sensed my scepticism but he was also prepared to address my disbelief.

“Look I know none of the educated will look at this matter and believe it,” he said.

“I have lived my life; I have invited medical teams to investigate this matter. None has come forward. So I don’t care what happens. These miracles are real,” he said.

I counselled: “Well you need to do something to make this story authentic, you need to provide birth certificates for each and every child, you need to get blood samples for DNA testing and also for the parents so that this will be full proof,” I explained.

Blood samples

After a week, he came back to me with photographs attached to each and every child’s “original” birth certificate from Kenya. He also came with blood samples and accompanying photographs of the samples taken from the Oderas house by a technician. The blood was taken by Doctor Essen, then a member of Gilbert Deya Ministries, to be tested in labs in central London.

As I prepared to publish the pictures in a magazine we were producing at the time, the results of the blood samples came out. However, the blood results given had nothing to do with the blood samples collected from the miracle babies. Somebody made money through Gilbert Deya in the name of shady laboratory DNA results.

“Deya, this has nothing to do with the blood results. These people explained what DNA is all about. This is no good,” I told him.
Anyway, we went ahead and produced 20,000 copies of the magazine with the main story being: “52-year-old woman giving birth after every 2 months, 14 years after her menopause”. Also on the cover was another story on Mary Deya: “The woman who God used to perform miracle babies in Jesus name including Mr & Mrs Odera.”

There was another rumour circulating querying whether Deya really had a private jet. Deya had gone to Kenya and he was pictured next to a private jet. This caused a stir. The story was that Deya was given an airplane by a Georgian businessman but pictures of this plane were not available to verify the story. I asked him about it and he said he found it too expensive to maintain and subsequently sold it. But this jet was different from one he had stood by and was pictured in. Deya’s name was printed on the side of it and there were pictures of him beside it in a prayerful mood. All this was a publicity stunt. After all, if you have money, you get more money; wealth attracts wealth.

Some doctoring

I personally knew it was not his plane. It had another company’s logo on the side and I knew that if it was his, his logo would be all over it. After all, the photographs required some doctoring to work on Photoshop. So these pictures were published and the debate started.

He was also photographed next to a helicopter. In America, it is well known that some big preachers have their own jets and helicopters, but that doesn’t happen here in the UK. We discussed this.

“This is more trouble Archbishop. If Muhammad al Fayed ,the owner of Harrods, had been refused permission to build a helipad on top of Harrods, how do you think this will be taken by authorities?” I asked