CONTROVERSIAL TELEVANGELIST GILBERT DEYA WHO HAS BEEN DEPORTED FROM THE UK TO FACE CHILD TRAFFICKING CHARGES IN KENYA. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
In Summary
He has been arguing that his human rights would be under threat.
He also argued that he would face “cruel and inhuman conditions” if jailed in Kenya.
Controversial preacher Gilbert Deya has arrived in Kenya after being extradited from Britain.
This comes just three weeks after a UK-based judge termed the fact that he had not been deported yet as 'scandalous'.
The controversial preacher, famously known for the 'miracle babies' saga arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 4.40am Friday aboard a Kenya Airways Flight from London.
Airport OCPD Zipporah Waweru confirmed the arrival of the preacher but did not give details of the extradition.
DCI
"This matter is being handled by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations but all I can confirm is that he arrived at that time," Ms Waweru said.
Daily Nation has learnt that Mr Deya was accompanied by three Kenyan police officers who had travelled to the UK to help in his extradition.
UK police officers also accompanied them.
As soon as the plane touched down, the DCI took over and transferred the preacher to the DCI headquarters along Kiambu Road, where he is expected to be questioned.
KENYA PRISONS
The extradition of the preacher was first ordered by then-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in 2007 but the preacher has managed to postpone it by claiming that the jails in Kenya are cruel and inhuman.
Following his claims, then-Home Secretary Theresa May, who is the current British Prime Minister, sent a judge, Lord David Ramsbotham, to Nairobi’s Kamiti Maximum Security Prison to check on the conditions.
The judge ruled that Mr Deya’s fears were unfounded.
FAKE DOCUMENTS
In March 2017, a UK court also accused Deya of providing fake documents.
The self-proclaimed bishop of a church in Peckham in South London is accused of stealing babies and lying to infertile couples that he could give them 'miracle babies'.
He is alleged to have stolen five babies in Kenya between 1999 and 2004.
His church in London is estimated to have 34,000 followers.
MARY DEYA
Mr Deya’s wife, Mary Deya is also serving a jail sentence at the Lang’ata Women Prison.
She was in January sentenced to three years for the theft of a child in September 2005.
She was also found guilty on two counts of providing false information.
She had earlier served and completed two jail terms.
Luggage being loaded on the roof of a bus at the Machakos Country Bus terminus as Nairobi residents travel to their rural homes on July 30, 2017. Fares have been hiked. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
In Summary
Job Mose, a ticket tout of Nyamira Express, said that fares have doubled.
Those travelling to Kisumu County pay between Sh1,200 and Sh1,500, up from the usual Sh800.
Antony Ngugi, a driver forModern Coast Bus Services, said the number of travellers has been rising since last week Friday though he said he was not sure why.
The passenger transport business is booming as Nairobi residents head to their rural homes, where many of them had registered as voters.
A spot check by the Nation at the Country Bus terminus, where most western Kenya-bound buses originate, revealed that most of the travellers are women and children.
Some said they were heading home to vote while others were leaving out of fear of violence that may break out over the outcome of the August 8 elections.
BUSINESS
Job Mose, a ticket seller for Nyamira Express, which takes travellers to destinations in Nyamira, Oyugis and Kendu Bay, said that fares have more than doubled and business is at its peak.
"In normal days, passengers pay Sh600 to these destinations, but this has changed as the number of travellers has more than doubled, driving up fares to between Sh1,200 and Sh1,500," Mr Mose said.
He added that buses are making more trips and more vehicles have been added to meet the demand.
FARES HIKED
Antony Ngugi, a driver forModern Coast Bus Services, said the number of travellers has been rising since last week Friday though he said he was not sure why.
Mr Ngugi said his company is cashing in on the upsurge by raising fares.
For example, those travelling to Kisumu County pay between Sh1,200 and Sh1,500, up from the usual Sh800.
VOTING
Another ticket agent, Grace Neema Nyabuto, who works for Otange Express, which travels to Homa Bay, said the passenger influx began on Wednesday last week, with women being the majority of the travellers.
The firm has raised fares to between Sh1,300 and Sh1,500 from Sh600.
"This unusual travelling started last Wednesday, with those travelling saying that they were going back to vote and a few citing fear of violence, while others said they were taking their families home and return to the city to vote," she said.
REGISTERED Mercy Mwendwa said she is a registered voter in Kisii, where she was heading with her two children.
"I live in Ngong but right now I am heading home to vote and not for fear of violence.
"My husband had already left. I registered [in Kisii] together with him," she said.
SAFETY
Several residents said they are leaving, not for fear of violence but because they are not registered in the county.
Eunice Okang’ and Nancy Onyango - both travelling to Ndhiwa in Homa Bay - are a case in point.
"We are not going home because of fear of civil strife, but rather to vote then come back soon after," said Okang’, a resident of Embakasi.
CONFIRM An interesting detail is that some bus company employees are asking travellers for voter details before they are allowed to buy a ticket.
Steve Odongo and Anthony Adala, who both work for a firm called Climax, said they have been asking passengers for their registration details and were only allowing those not registered in the city to board.
"Those we doubt we ask them for their IDs to confirm where they are registered but from Friday, there has been a lot of traffic [and] that has made it a bit difficult to confirm all the details," Mr Odongo said.
Of all the posse of career civil servants, politicians and advisers who were in the inner circle of President Daniel Moi during his 24 years at the helm, two of them emerged extraordinarily wealthy in a manner that has often been called into question.
Nicholas Biwott, a former Cabinet minister who was buried this week in his farm in Elgeyo Marakwet, and Joshua Kulei, President Moi’s personal secretary, rose from obscurity and by the time Moi left power in 2002, they had joined the exclusive club of Kenya’s billionaires.
Over the course of Moi’s presidency, they built enviable business empires spanning nearly all sectors of the Kenyan economy. Their businesses stretch beyond Kenya’s borders all the way to Namibia, Australia, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg.
'FAT KICKBACKS'
However, the Opposition often claimed that their wealth was corruptly acquired by looting Kenya’s fragile economy at an industrial scale through fat kickbacks for contracts for mega projects and by manipulating the financial sector to their advantage but to the detriment of the majority.
Biwott’s enormous wealth coupled with his closeness with Moi gave him unrivalled political clout which he used to ruthlessly silence the president’s critics and made him one of the most feared and reviled figures in the Kanu era.
Biwott represented Keiyo South constituency in Parliament from 1979 to 2007 during which he became the public face of the excesses of the Kanu administration. On the other hand, Kulei was content to be the man in the shadows but wielded power quietly but effectively.
REPRESENTED INTERESTS
A former warder, he represented President Moi’s business interests, a privileged position that gave him the opportunity to build an impressive business portfolio of his own which later became a source of friction between him and Moi’s sons, Gideon and Philip.
“While Mark Too (former Nominated MP who died in January this year) was taking care of his political issues, Kulei was taking care of the business side of things,” said a former State House operative during President Moi’s era, who requested to speak freely in the background so as not to appear as disrespecting the retired president.
Physically, Biwott and Kulei look like brothers. They are both diminutive, soft-spoken and deceptively shy. But their dour nature cleverly masks a determined ruthlessness and unbridled ambition for capital accumulation.
The two shared little else. Biwott and Kulei were never really close friends, according to a top city lawyer who once represented President Moi. “Biwott looked down upon Kulei because of his low education,” he said.
“However, Kulei relished this harmless, underdog perception that Biwott had of him. He set out to prove wrong those who thought less of him,” the lawyer said. Despite their differences, Biwott and Kulei were pragmatic enough to tolerate each other in service of President Moi and in their common pursuit of wealth.
EXTENT REVEALED
The extent of the business dealings of the trio was revealed in a report prepared by Kroll and Associates, a private investigative company based in London in the United Kingdom, which was contracted by the Narc administration in 2003 to trace the loot allegedly stashed abroad by Moi and his associates.
Kroll submitted their 106-page report to the government in April 2004 but it was never made public until it was leaked in August 2007 by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The report revealed that Kulei represented Moi in more than 50 companies operating in all sectors of the economy.
“It has been reported that Kulei holds serious investments in London, including a palatial residence in upmarket London, where his children have always attended school. Further sources confirm that Kulei has two properties in Surrey, the larger of which is owned by ex-president Moi,” said the report.
Some of the companies jointly owned by the former president and Kulei include Sian Roses on a 60:40 basis. (The name is derived from Kulei’s family name Chemusian). They also co-own Ngata Flower Farm in Nakuru on a 50:50 basis, the report said. Furthermore, Kulei and Gideon each owned 12.5 per cent of Siginon Freight, a transport company, while Kabarak High School owns 75 per cent, the report said.
OWNERSHIP CHANGE
The ownership of these companies could have changed over time since the trio have since divided up most of the property they co-owned. Just before Kanu was booted out of power, Kulei relinquished most of the property he held in trust for President Moi, said the Kroll report.
It was at this point that he ran into trouble with Moi’s sons, Philip and Gideon, who believed that he had conned their father. “Gideon kept convincing his father that Kulei may have more money than him as a result of using the ex-president’s name,” said the Kroll report.
Fearing for his life, “it is understood that it was during the time that Kulei contemplated leaving Kenya to live in London,” the report said.
Sovereign Group Ltd, which is located at Trans National Plaza on Mama Ngina Street in Nairobi, is Kulei’s holding company. The company owns Maasai Ostrich Resort in Kitengela, Merica Hotel in Nakuru and diatomite mines in Kariandusi near Lake Elementaita among other businesses.
SUBSTANTIAL STAKE
He still has a substantial stake in the Standard Group Ltd, the Mombasa Road–based media company that owns the Standard newspaper and KTN television. Kulei is the single largest shareholder in the company with 38 per cent, while Moi and his son Gideon jointly own 52 per cent and the remaining 10 per cent is owned by the public.
On the other hand, Biwott’s flagship investments include the Yaya Centre in Hurlingham, Kenol-Kobil chain of petrol stations and Air Kenya Ltd. He is believed to have a significant interest in HZ Construction Company as well as Safaricom.
Some of the businesses that Biwott co-owned with Moi include the Nakuru based-Lima Ltd, one of the biggest dealers in farm equipment in Kenya, and Trans National Bank. A source said that the Moi family has no interest in the Kenol-Kobil petrol stations as it has been long rumoured.
FEW CO-OWNED
Ironically, there are few companies that Moi, Biwott and Kulei co-owned, which perhaps reflects the uneasy relationship that Biwott and Kulei enjoyed. The Nakuru-based National Milling Corporation, which has since gone under, is one such company which was jointly owned by the trio.
But given the array of businesses that the trio owned, it is possible that there are many more businesses that they still co-own of which little is known about, as evidenced by their fight dating back to 2012 for two pieces of land in Nairobi worth billions of shillings.
The case pits Moi and Biwott on one hand against Kulei whom they accuse of trying to defraud them of the unidentified pieces of prime land. They claimed that Kulei, through a company called Belgo Holdings, was holding the land in trust for Moi, a claim which the former president’s aide denied.
NO COURT
Despite the lawyers of the three billionaires exchanging harsh letters, the matter has never made it to court, something that would have helped shed more light on their business dealings.
By the time the Narc administration received the Kroll report in 2004, it was deeply mired in a corruption scandal of its own – the Anglo Leasing scandal – through which the government is suspected to have lost billions of shillings in fraudulent security contracts.
Narc, which had come to power on an anti-corruption platform, had lost face to act on the Kroll report. After it was leaked by WikiLeaks in 2007, government spokesman Alfred Mutua, who is now the governor of Machakos, dismissed it as a shoddy piece of investigative work.
SUFFER BLOW
Furthermore, Narc’s resolve to pursue Biwott and Kulei over corruption suffered a blow early in the days of the Narc administration after President Kibaki reportedly told his Cabinet that every corruption suspect in Kanu except his predecessor was fair game. Moi was to be left in peace.
“It was impossible to pursue Biwott and Kulei and leave out Moi yet their business dealings were so intertwined,” said Moi’s former lawyer who asked to speak in confidence.
“Touching either of the two would lead to Moi and this is what Kibaki had expressly said no to. Investigators were very limited in what they could do,” he added.
In the end, the Narc administration never charged Biwott or Moi with any of the political or economic crimes that it claimed the two were guilty of. And with Biwott’s death, the chances of this ever happening have quite literally been buried six feet under.
During the former Cabinet minister's funeral on Thursday, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto pledged to defend the Biwott family over the allegations of corruption that have followed the patriarch to the grave. “We will make sure no one touches them,” DP Ruto told the mourners.
