Oyedepo’s Pastor, Allegedly, Stole $90,000, N4.5 Million

By Akinwale Kasali

For this Pastor of the Living Faith Bible Church, known as Winners Chapel, founded  by Bishop David Oyedepo, not even the House of God is to sacred to defraud or steal from. For his alleged behaviour Oyedepo’s Church   is in the news for shameful reasons.

One of its Pastors, Afolabi Samuel, has been arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, at the Ikeja Special Offences Court, Lagos,  for allegedly stealing $90,000 and N4.5m, property of the Registered Trustees of the Living Faith Bible Church, Canaan land, Ota, Ogun State.

Samuel, the Church accountant, was brought before Justice Mojisola Dada for the offences highlighted above.

The EFCC prosecutor, S. O. Daji, said Samuel committed the alleged offences between September 24 and December 31, 2018, in Lagos.

The EFCC said he, and his accomplice, Blessing Kolawole, a staff of Covenant University (now at large), converted the said sum to their own personal use.

A petition submitted to the EFCC by Chioma Okwuanyi & Co legal practitioners, said: “The duo started carrying out various acts of breach of trust and fraudulent commission of unconscionable economic crime and sabotage, by unlawfully diverting to their private use, the Church’s money in Pastor Samuel’s custody without the permission of the Church.

“The duo continued doing so until sometime in the month of December 2018, when they ran out of luck, and all their secret acts of economic sabotage and financial crime of fraudulently tampering with the Church’s money were revealed.

“When confronted by the Church, Pastor Samuel, who lives around the church at Raji Oba, Lagos admitted committing the act, and even voluntarily made a written confession where he detailed how they have been stealing from the Church”.

Justice Dada remanded him at the Correctional Centre, and adjourned the matter till December 10, 2019, for the hearing of bail application.