A bitter court battle unfolding at the Milimani Law Courts has thrown Mamlaka Hill Chapel, one of Nairobi’s most influential evangelical churches into turmoil, with its presiding bishop facing explosive claims of an inappropriate relationship with a congregant’s wife and misuse of church funds.

In a sensational replying affidavit filed before milimani Commercial Chief Magistrate court by a long-serving member who has presented audio recordings and inappropriate WhatsApp messages to his wife, he claims to expose a deeply personal and financial scandal now threatening to fracture the powerful church.

The case pits Bishop Charles Muhia Ng’ang’a, Presiding Bishop, against Njihia Njoroge, a church member of over 30 years, who has responded to the Bishop’s defamation suit with a detailed affidavit.

According to Njoroge’s replying affidavit filed on March 16, 2026, the genesis of the matter is late October 2025, when a mobile phone, previously used by his wife EN, and a senior staff member at Mamlaka Hill Chapel for over 20 years, passed into the possession of the couple’s 14-old daughter.

Njoroge said that when he picked up that phone, what he found would change everything. He came across a trove of messages that Njoroge describes as wholly inconsistent with a proper episcopal relationship.

Scrolling through the device, he encountered a series of WhatsApp messages exchanged between his wife and a contact saved as the Pastor Charles Office Line who emerged to be Bishop Muhia’s contacts.

The trove of messages, he states in his sworn affidavit were personal, familiar and inconsistent with the relationship between a Presiding Bishop and a married member of his staff.

Among the messages he says he found from Bishop Muhia to his wife were declarations of deep personal affection, statements of romantic longing, and late-night communications extending, in his words, well beyond what any reasonable person would consider appropriate between a spiritual leader and a congregant’s spouse.

One of the messages produced in court as evidence and marked Exhibit NN-2 indicates that the bishop told Eunice he had never worked with anybody as lovely and thoughtful as her, before signing off with a declaration that she should know he loved her so much.  

“I’ve never worked with anybody as lovely and thoughtful as you. Am truly grateful. And in case I never get to say this to you another time cos am a Kikuyu man, just know that I love you so much!,” the message reads.

Another message, Njoroge states, read: “Thanks EN, meanwhile we’re showering in the office,” accompanied by suggestive emojis.

Other messages included “Kesho mimi na wewe,” “it’s why I need you in my life,” and a haunting late-night communication: “Hi EN, she is coming. Can you come?”

Betrayal

The impact on Njoroge, he states in his affidavit, was profound. The sense of betrayal he experienced upon reading those messages, he states, was overwhelming.

What made it worse was the timing. Months earlier, Njoroge had written to the Bishop, copying the Chairman of the Elders Court, under the subject line “Help me get back my wife”.

He had reached out to the very man who, he now believes, was the reason his wife had become distant and withdrawn.

Rather than rushing to social media or the press, Njoroge says he followed the biblical framework of Matthew 18:15-17, first confronting the Bishop privately, then with witnesses, and finally before the church’s Elders Court.

A meeting took place on  November 20, 2025 at CJ’s, Village Market, lasting two and Njoroge had a recording device running the entire time.

The transcript, running 47 pages and filed in court as an exhibit reveals a remarkable admission.

When confronted with the messages, Bishop Muhia did not deny authorship.

According to the transcript, the bishop stated he had grown to like EN the way she works and that they were “very good friends,” before swearing on God’s name that the relationship had never been physical.

“May God kill me and remove me from this world,” the transcript record of the Bishop states in part “if I have ever touched your wife or desired to sleep with her.”

It was only after Njoroge sent him a screenshot of one of his own messages that Bishop Muhia agreed to sit down. The Bishop also acknowledged, per the transcript, that his messages had been “inappropriate”, he did not claim the screenshots had been fabricated or manipulated.

According to the transcript, he acknowledged he did not deny writing the messages, described his feelings for EN as those of deep friendship and admiration, and spoke at length about the 20 years of working relationship that had developed between them.

But what the Bishop did not do, and what Njoroge’s affidavit returns to repeatedly, was offer any concrete proposal for remediation.

He did not address the question of how EN could continue working at the church while the marriage was in crisis.

The man of God did not propose accountability measures, neither did he offer to step aside. He acknowledged wrongdoing and, by Njoroge’s account, left it there.

Private confrontation, the affidavit concludes, had failed to produce the outcome the Scripture envisions.

The inappropriate personal messages were disturbing enough. But as Njoroge continued reviewing the phone, he says he encountered something that pointed to a broader pattern of misconduct, evidence, he alleges, of serious financial and administrative irregularities in the running of Mamlaka Hill Chapel itself.

Construction cheques

Buried among the personal exchanges were messages that appeared to show Bishop Muhia directing EN to process construction cheques, pay a transporter Sh9,000, forward funds to the church’s Limuru Country Club account, arrange for a personal vehicle to be repaired using church funds and even request that she send his personal medication.

One message reads: “Hi EN, please text me registration of the personal vehicle repaired with church funds.”

Another instructs her to process two construction cheques, one immediately and one to be held, adding: “Am trying to get as much done before Christmas as possible. It’s our turn to host the family this year.”

In a particularly striking exchange, the Bishop appears to discuss raising the threshold for requisitions at the church’s Ruaka campus from Sh50,000 to Sh300,000 suggesting the higher figure was appropriate because he was, at the time, traveling out of town.

There was also, among the directives concerning hundreds of thousands of shillings in church funds, a request that EN send him a steamer.

Njoroge’s lawyers argue in the affidavit that these messages reveal a woman being exploited both emotionally and professionally, functioning simultaneously as the Bishop’s personal assistant, procurement officer, and confidante, while her husband remained oblivious.