PASTOR EZEKIEL ARRESTED

A funeral home in Kilifi county has threatened to sue popular preacher Ezekiel Odero of New Life Prayer Center and Church over claims he performed miracles that led to the closure of the facility.

In a televised service, the preacher had faulted the owners of Milele Funeral Burial and Benevolent Services in Mbogolo area near Kilifi town for setting up a morgue adjacent to a blackspot, purposefully to profit from deaths arising from accidents along the Mombasa-Malindi Road.

The preacher claimed to have sprinkled three bottles of holy water on the blackspot, driving the morgue out of business.

“At Mbogolo slope on your way to Mombasa on your right, there is somewhere written Milele Funeral home. There is no hospital, dispensary or clinic but it’s just a funeral home. And that area is a black spot. In other words, they are telling you that they are welcoming deaths along that stretch because they have their ready business for funeral service. They are telling you that we welcome you to die, we have everything ready for the funeral service,” Odero said.

“Today I will open up on this…I was very annoyed by this and I went and opened up three bottles of living water and hurled them there and the funeral home was shut.”

The above remarks which have been going around in a viral video have rattled the management of Milele Funeral Burial and Benevolent Services who have now threatened to file a suit against him for the remarks that could be damaging to their business.

According to Johnson Amani, the Chief Executive Officer of Coastal Links Investment Limited, the Company which runs the funeral service, they have never closed their operations at Mbogolo contrary to claims by the preacher.

“For clarity, Milele is still operating and any false information being advanced by the pastor should be treated with the contempt it deserves… Even as I am speaking now there are bodies from the accident scene in Taita which are being ferried to the Milele Funeral Home morgue,” the CEO said in a telephone interview withK24 Digital.

He dismissed the claims that the funeral home was purposefully established in the area to target accidents terming the assertions as unfounded.

“To say that we targeted the blackspot so that we can harvest from the accident is not true. We decided to settle in Mbogolo because of the availability of land. You know you cannot just set up a funeral home anywhere. It cannot be near homes and those are some of the factors that led us to Mbogolo,” the CEO added.

According to Amani, just like any business entity Milele has risen up to where it is through sheer hard work and huge financial investment, adding that the preacher’s “reckless” utterances “has massively affected our market and day in day out we have had to explain to our clients that we are still in operation.”

He said the “deliberate and malicious” attacks by Pastor Odero started in 2020 immediately after they opened doors to serve the public.

“Through his televised preachings Ev. Ezekiel Odero persistently assured his congregation that we were to close shop before his arrival at the now headquarters of his ministry.

As a company founded in the strict whims of religious tolerance we chose to remain mum and act with restrain even as the attacks massively consumed our clientele which took us time to assemble,” the CEO said, adding “having acquired all the statutory thresholds and clearance to operate a private funeral home, Milele funeral services has been handling members of the public in apt adherence to all the health guideline as required by law.”

In November last year, the popular Evangelist set tongues wagging after he pulled off a jaw-dropping show, filling Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi to capacity 

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He claims to have the ability to make the cripples walk and even heal various diseases.

A couple of years ago, the pastor shifted base from Shanzu in Mombasa to Mavueni area in Kilifi, about 57 Kilometers North of Mombasa where he recently acquired hundreds of acres of land to expand his ministry.

Sourced from K24 digital