By Adolph Muhumuza | Factjaja Fact-Check
Last Friday, in a courtroom in Mombasa, a Kenyan judge read out a sentence that most of us will struggle to forget. Paul Mackenzie, a self-styled pastor, was handed 200 years in prison: 100 for murder by starvation and 100 for direct homicide. The court found him responsible for the deaths of 190 children and one adult. According to reports, many of those children were starved on the orders of their own parents, who had been told that dying was the road to heaven. Twenty-eight accomplices were also sentenced, some of them parents who watched their own children waste away.
Sit with that for a moment. These were not monsters. They were mothers and fathers who loved their children. They were also people who had been taught, step by careful step, that the voice of one man was the voice of God, and that doubting him was the one sin that could not be forgiven.
That is the question this article is really about. Not “are all pastors frauds?” They are not. Millions of believers in Uganda and across Africa find comfort, community and moral direction in church, and many pastors serve honestly. The question is what happens when spiritual authority stops being accountable to anyone, and when the people who ask for proof are treated as enemies of God.
Social Media Scrutiny
Over the past several weeks, Uganda has watched an unusual public fight. Businessman and commentator Frank Gashumba challenged pastors, prophets and apostles who claim healing powers to prove them where proof is easy to check: in a hospital, on critically ill patients, with doctors watching. He put money on the table. Reports differ on the figure, with some outlets saying Shs500 million and others Shs200 million, but the logic of the challenge was simple. If you can heal, show us.
What followed was not a demonstration. It was a barrage. Reports say several pastors accused him of mockery but stopped short of accepting the challenge. Pastor Robert Kayanja, in a Wednesday night service at Miracle Centre Cathedral, declared that Gashumba faced deadly consequences, including death by his “own blood.” The row spilled onto social media, pulled in Gashumba’s daughter Sheilah and Kayanja’s son, and then pulled in politics, with Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba telling Gashumba to apologise to Christians while backing Kayanja.
I want to be fair here, because fairness is the whole point of a fact-check. Gashumba is a polarising figure. Some commentators argue he was reckless to attack people’s livelihoods and beliefs in hard economic times. Others argue his tone is performative and that the real issue is a state that has failed its people, leaving them to seek rescue from pulpits. Those are legitimate arguments. But notice what they do not do. None of them answers the original question: where is the evidence?
A challenge was made. Money was staked. And the reply, in the reporting I have reviewed, was curses, death predictions, insults and appeals to “touch not my anointed.” That is not a rebuttal. That is a reaction.
The claim at the centre of this fact-check
The story that prompted this piece involves Apostle Grace Lubega of Phaneroo Ministries, whose ministry has been the subject of public claims about curing HIV and, reportedly, raising four people from the dead.
A claim is not a finding. Testimonies shared from a stage are claims. A fact-check asks for the things that turn a story into evidence: a named patient who consents to be identified, a diagnosis from a licensed facility, test results before and after, a death certificate or a mortuary record in the case of a resurrection, and independent witnesses who are not employees, volunteers or members of the ministry.
As of this writing, Factjaja is yet to locate the full video to establish whether the clip is taken out of context or accurately represents the actual claim as presented in the short video.
There is also a dimension that is not abstract. HIV is a treatable condition. People who believe they have been healed and stop taking antiretroviral medication can become seriously ill and can pass the virus to others. A miracle claim that discourages treatment is not a harmless act of faith. It is a public health risk. To be continued…….
