I am 82 and she is 27 - Bishop Gilbert Deya defends decision to marry young Kenyan girl

I am 82 and she is 27 - controversial Bishop defends decision to marry young Kenyan girl

Tony Mukere

June 13, 2019 11:01 AM

"I cannot cage my body because it has sexual needs"

I am 82 and she is 27 - Bishop Gilbert Deyadefends decision to marry young Kenyan girl

Controversial Kenyan priest, Bishop Gilbert Deya, has defended a decision to marry a Kenyan woman who is fifty-five years his junior.

Deya grabbed national attention after his wife, Mary Deya, was arrested in 2004 and later convicted for child trafficking.

The Deyas had been running a church ministry in the United Kingdom where they had purported to give “miracle babies” to women struggling with barrenness.

On Wednesday, Bishop Deya said he had decided to get another wife after his first wife decided to divorce him.

“They call me controversial but I am only real. I don’t like doing things in secret and I don’t want to have adulterous relationships with women and since I can’t stay single, I have to marry,” Deya said in an interview with Radio Jambo.

Questioned on the identity of his fiancée, the Bishop declined to reveal her name but mentioned that she was a beautiful 27-year old woman she met in his church in Nairobi.

“I won’t mention her name because she is very young and beautiful, like you (Radio Jambo’s Massawe Jappani). She is a young girl aged 27 years – very big age gap but that is in line with my liking,” he stated.

Deya explained that he had already gotten approval from the girl’s parents, adding that he wanted a young wife because he was old and in need of someone to take care of him.

“I have already gotten a wife. I don’t want to cheat with women and I don’t want to have sex outside of marriage and I can not cage my body because it was created to have sexual needs,” the miracle-baby preacher emphasized.

Deya said that after his wife was jailed in Kenya, he was forced to look for a woman in the UK where he was staying, “to avoid getting prostate cancer”.

Tony Mukere