Sh70m for Legio Maria’s ‘Messiah’ Melkio Ondetto mausoleum in Migori

Migori County government and the Legio Maria sect will transform the mausoleum of the sect's founder Melkio Ondetto into a religious tourist attraction monument at a cost of Sh70 million.

Followers refer to Ondetto as the Messiah and they refer to the Bible as 'Sulwe'. The sect has followers in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya.

According to the church administration, the monument will enclose the graveyard of the late Ondetto, which is on top of God Kwer Hill in Suna West sub-county. Legio Maria Management Board Chairman Samson Arogo said a chapel will be built atop the tomb of the 'Messiah' to ensure a monument of its kind is erected in the region to attract tourists.

"Already we have spent more than Sh30 million on this project and as a church we are looking for more funds to complete the construction," he said.

Governor Okoth Obado said his administration would partner with the national government to work out modalities on how the site could be improved to attract more tourists.

interment space

Mr Obado was led into Ondetto's tomb by Pope Romanus Alphons Ong'ombe for special prayers and blessings for good leadership. He said the county government will open up new roads leading to the mausoleum, and supply clean and safe water around the place.

"This is what many countries are doing. In Israel people visit the place where Jesus was buried. There is another monument in Brazil. This is why we should have our own monument; one we can identify with as Africans and will attract tourists," he said.

Obado was speaking at God Kwer where he presided over a fundraiser towards the construction of the chapel. The event coincided with the closure of the annual holy week of prayers held in remembrance of Ondetto. Obado and his team helped to raise Sh1.6 million.

They all applauded the county government's gesture of planning to put God Kwer on the global map by refurbishing the graveyard as a historical site.

"As the Legio Maria community, we are ready to partner with the county government to convert the mausoleum of the late Baba Melkio into a tourist attraction site and with no doubt this locality shall hit the global map in a positive way," said Ong'ombe.

The grave dates back to 1992 when the founder of the Legio Maria Church died and his remains buried at God Kwer, which according to members is the hill of peace and repentance.

At first his followers camped by his grave and engaged in fervent prayer, awaiting his resurrection. The idea of his resurrection was rooted in the sect's belief that the 'messiah' would come back for the third time to collect his followers and take them to heaven.

When Ondetto 'refused' to resurrect, his followers left his gravesite. But they still visit the place every year, which they renamed 'Calvary' for pilgrimage, as they await Ondetto's third coming.

Interestingly, Legio Maria was founded around the same time that Kenya attained independence.

In 1960, Ondetto and 37 followers of the sect were beaten up by colonial police officers and locked up at Kodiaga Prison in Kisumu. He was tried in Kisii and Kisumu law courts and found guilty of holding illegal meetings.

Passing the judgement, Senior Magistrate at the Kisumu Law Courts John Abraham described Ondetto and his followers as, "a collection of lapsed Catholics and pagans practicing heresy that is a mockery to Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church".

But instead of seeing this as a setback, sect members saw it as the fulfillment of a tribulation that had been prophesied in the Bible. Within a year, the fledgling church had accumulated close to 100,000 members who hailed Ondetto as Baba Messias (Father Messiah) and "the living God".

According to legend, Ondetto would later stick with the name 'Melkio', a nickname that meant 'the scratcher' because lice and jiggers caused him to scratch his body continuously in his childhood. Ondetto is said to have performed a number of miracles.