BCLB Chair Jane Mwikali Must Go: A Regulatory Failure That Costs Lives

The Blood is on Your Hands, Reverend Makau

By Amos Seii

The latest exposé of Prophet David Maina’s sacred swindle should be the final nail in the coffin for Rev. Dr. Jane Mwikali Makau’s catastrophic tenure as Chairperson of the Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB). Once again, we witness the same shameful pattern: a gambling scam destroys thousands of Kenyan lives, the media exposes it, and only then does our toothless regulator spring into theatrical action.

How many more Kenyans must lose their life savings, their children’s school fees, their hope, before we admit the obvious truth? Rev. Makau and her board have failed spectacularly, and their continued presence at the helm of BCLB is nothing short of criminal negligence.

A Pattern of reactive incompetence

The Yahweh Media Services scandal is not an isolated incident—it’s the latest chapter in a damning chronicle of regulatory failure.

For months, Prophet Maina operated his elaborate con game right under BCLB’s nose, siphoning millions from Kenya’s most vulnerable citizens through rigged religious gambling shows.

Whistleblowers reveal the operation was so brazen that Maina himself boasted of making Sh1.1 million in a single day, with daily hauls of Sh600,000 during peak periods.

Where was Rev. Makau? Where was her vaunted oversight?

The answer is as predictable as it is infuriating: nowhere to be found until NTV’s cameras started rolling.

This is the same regulatory body that only banned gambling advertisements last month after sustained public outcry and media pressure—as if they were somehow unaware that predatory betting had been ravaging Kenyan families for years.

It’s the same board that sat idle while crash games like Aviator drove young Kenyans to suicide, only scrambling for action after the body count became impossible to ignore.

Conflict of interest or outright corruption?

Rev. Mwikali graces an event sponsored by a gambling company.

Rev. Makau’s cozy relationship with gambling operators has become an open secret that stinks to high heaven.

Her appearances at betting industry functions, her blocking of CEO Peter Mbugi’s efforts to ban deadly crash games, and her consistent pattern of soft-pedaling enforcement actions all point to one uncomfortable conclusion: the person tasked with protecting Kenyans from gambling harm appears to be in bed with the very predators she’s meant to regulate.

Industry insiders whisper of “packages” and private meetings with betting giants.

Whether these allegations are true or not, the appearance of impropriety is so overwhelming that Rev. Makau’s position has become untenable.

When your regulator is seen as an endorser rather than an enforcer, the entire system collapses.

The human cost of regulatory capture

Behind every rigged game and every unpunished scam are real Kenyan faces. Ruth Wanjiku, the elderly woman who lost Sh6,000 in less than an hour to Prophet Maina’s con.

Joseph Ng’ang’a, the widower who gambled away his children’s school fees chasing false promises.

The unnamed young Kenyans who took their own lives after losing everything to Aviator’s rigged algorithms.

These are not statistics—they are indictments of a regulatory system that has prioritized industry profits over human lives. Every day Rev. Makau remains in office is another day these predators operate with impunity, knowing full well that Kenya’s gambling regulator is either incompetent, compromised, or both.

The ‘Prophet’ Maina scandal: A case study in failure

The Yahweh Media Services investigation reveals the depths of BCLB’s dysfunction.

Prophet Maina operated multiple gambling platforms disguised as religious programming, using emotional manipulation and technical deceit to drain money from Kenya’s poorest households.

The operation was so sophisticated that it included fake winners, scripted emotional appeals, and systematic targeting of vulnerable demographics.

BCLB CEO Peter Mbugi admits the operation held no gambling license and was not permitted to conduct any form of gambling.

Yet it operated for months, if not years, generating millions in illegal profits.

When finally confronted, Maina simply pivoted to claiming he offered “lending services” instead of gambling—a transparent lie that any competent regulator should have seen through immediately.

This is the regulatory environment Rev. Makau has created: one where sophisticated fraudsters can operate with virtual impunity, knowing that enforcement is reactive, toothless, and easily circumvented.

The aviator debacle: When politics trumps public safety

The internal conflict over banning Aviator and other crash games reveals everything wrong with Rev. Makau’s leadership.

When CEO Mbugi proposed urgent action to address the growing suicide epidemic linked to these predatory games, Rev. Makau reportedly blocked him, issuing instead a watered-down directive that merely asked betting companies to resubmit paperwork.

This wasn’t regulation—it was obstruction. While Kenyan families buried their children, Rev. Makau was apparently more concerned with protecting industry interests than saving lives.

The March 25 memo that emerged from this internal sabotage stands as a testament to regulatory capture, prioritizing bureaucratic theater over meaningful action.

Time for accountability

Rev. Dr. Jane Mwikali Makau must resign immediately. Her tenure has been marked by consistent failure, apparent conflicts of interest, and a pattern of reactive governance that has cost Kenyan lives.

The gambling industry she was meant to regulate has instead captured her, turning BCLB into little more than a licensing rubber stamp for predatory operators.

But resignation alone is not enough. There must be a comprehensive investigation into BCLB’s failures, particularly any financial relationships between board members and gambling operators.

If the rumors of “packages” and private meetings are true, criminal charges should follow.

Kenya deserves a gambling regulator that puts public safety before industry profits, that proactively identifies and shuts down predatory operations, and that treats the protection of vulnerable citizens as its primary mandate. M

Under Rev. Makau’s leadership, BCLB has failed on every count.

The next BCLB leadership must implement immediate reforms: proactive monitoring of gambling operations, rigorous algorithm audits for all games, mandatory cooling-off periods for players, and severe penalties for operators who target vulnerable populations.

Most importantly, the regulator must be genuinely independent, free from the industry capture that has neutered current enforcement efforts.

But first, Rev. Makau must go. Every day she remains in office is another day of failed leadership, another opportunity for predators like Prophet Maina to exploit regulatory weakness, and another chance for more Kenyan families to be destroyed by unregulated gambling.

The blood of gambling victims is on her hands. It’s time for her to face the consequences of her failures and step aside for leaders who will actually protect the Kenyan people.

Rev. Makau, your time is up. Resign now, before more lives are lost to your incompetence.

The Writer is a media critic.

Note: Opinions are writer’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of Kenya Insights.