Father John Juma Pesa, the deeply polarising founder of the Holy Ghost Coptic Church of Africa, has died while receiving treatment at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisumu County. The cause of his death has not yet been officially confirmed, though reports suggest old age as a possible factor. His body has since been transferred to the hospital mortuary, awaiting a postmortem examination.
Sharon Akinyi, one of the church workers, described his final hours. “I was not with him today when he was being taken to the hospital, but I was with him yesterday. He went to the hospital and came back. However, today, when he was taken back, he passed away,” she said.
Pesa’s death closes one of the most controversial chapters in Kenya’s religious history — a story that was never simply about faith.
He began his religious journey in 1971 after breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church, going on to establish the Holy Ghost Coptic Church of Africa along the Kisumu-Kakamega Highway in Mamboleo. Over five decades, he built a powerful independent movement drawing thousands of followers from across western Kenya, many of whom believed in his claimed ability to heal illness, cure mental disorders, and cast out evil spirits. To his loyal congregation, he was a prophet. To the authorities, he was a recurring problem.
His ministry attracted repeated police raids, Senate investigations, and interventions by human rights organisations over allegations of illegally confining vulnerable individuals — including mentally ill patients and people struggling with addiction — within his church compound. In 2023, a multi-agency team raided the facility and rescued several emaciated patients found locked in rooms under poor conditions.
The same operation uncovered four graves near the perimeter wall of the compound. Pesa insisted the graves belonged to church members who had chosen to be buried on the grounds, but the discovery horrified the nation and drew immediate comparisons to the Shakahola massacre.
Despite the gravity of these allegations, Pesa repeatedly escaped decisive legal accountability, framing every government intervention as religious persecution and leveraging his influence over a large voting bloc to protect his position.
He also found his way into national political circles. In 2020, during a visit to then-Deputy President William Ruto’s Sugoi home, Pesa delivered a sermon in which he claimed that King Solomon killed Goliath — a basic biblical error that went viral and made him the subject of widespread mockery across Kenyan social media.
George Otieno, a boda boda rider near the church, said Pesa would be remembered for caring for the sick. But for many others, his death is less an occasion for mourning than a moment for reckoning — a reminder that Kenya still lacks the regulatory frameworks to prevent religious leaders from operating above the law.
