Pastor Ezekiel Odero has gotten temporary relief after the high court suspended the decision by the registrar of society to deregister his church.
Odero moved to court after the registrar published a gazette notice canceling the registration of New Life Church.
In a ruling delivered by Justice Jairus Ngaa, the court has issued a stay suspending the gazette notice.
Upon perusal of material placed before court in support of the application, I am persuaded to
exercise my discretion and allow the applicants to challenge the gazette notice dated 18 August
2023 whose purport is to deregister the society referred to as “New Life Prayer Center and Church”reads court orders
In the case, Odero had argued that the cancellation of his certificate was an obvious scheme to frustrate and obstruct operations of his
church.
Through lawyer Danstan Omari and Cliff Ombeta, Odero says their file to submit returns has been missing and efforts to get it have been futile.
“ despite the Applicants ceaseless attempts by the Applicant through his Advocates to get the church’s file from the registry for purposes of
filing its annual returns, it has failed, ignored, neglected and/or refused to avail the said file to the church,” reads court documents
Odero argues that the registrar of societies intentionally and maliciously conspired to make
unavailable the church’s file in a bid to frustrate the church efforts to remain in
compliance with the Societies Act by filing its Annual Returns on time.
He also claims that they had no prior information as to the decision to cancel the Registration of the church and was not given any opportunities to defend himself and the church in order to avert the deregistration.
Odero had pleaded with the court to suspend the gazette notice saying he has an upcoming
“Meza ya Bwana” international conference, scheduled to take place in 14 days bringing thousands of members across the world.
