Bungoma-based religious leader, Eliud Wekesa, also known as Yesu wa Tongaren has asked the government to come to his aid to take care of his school going children.
Speaking while still in police custody, Mr Wekesa said investigators had gone to his properties and found that he was a poor religious leader with no financial stability.
He was later freed by the Bungoma Law Courts after the prosecution said they had no evidence to sustain a lawsuit against him.
“Many people seeing me trend on the internet across the world think I have money, which are just papers in this world. But I am thankful that I went with investigators to my home this last time and they saw for themselves – the church offerings they found there was Sh250, six tomatoes and four onions in the offering basket,” Wekesa said.
“I asked them where the money the world thinks I have is. All my houses are constructed with mud. They entered my houses and church and found they had bare floors. I asked God to act,” he said.
He went on to reveal he has outstanding school fee balances for his school-going children.
“I have arrears for my child in Grade Seven at Mukuyuni Primary. I have another child for whom I’m supposed to clear Sh8,000 because I had only paid Sh3,000. I’m asking the government to help me in this matter because when Prophet Benjamin came to see me, he told me my children were chased from school because of this,” Mr Wekesa said.
“I also spoke to a man from Meru, despite him grappling with a disability, he told me he saw what has been happening to me on TV and he wanted to pay my son’s school fees. I plan to give him my son’s number once I leave this place,” he said, while also asking the public to help him purchase a gas cooker and a mobile phone.
Mr Wekesa, who is the founder and leader of New Jerusalem Church, has eight children. Yesu Wa Tongaren, just like Jesus of Nazareth, calls himself the Messiah and has disciples. He had been accused of preaching radical teachings, but he denied the charges saying he was only preaching the gospel.
He presented himself to the police in Bungoma County last week after being summoned. This was after President William Ruto called for investigations into religious sects with radical and cultic teachings.
The president’s call came in the wake of the Shakahola Forest mass deaths of followers of cult leader Paul Mackenzi. So far, more than 200 bodies have now been exhumed from the mass graves in Shakahola Forest, Kilifi County.
