Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has petitioned the Department of State Services, DSS, alleging that Primate Elijah Ayodele, founder of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Lagos, is trying to extort him to the tune of N150 million.
According to The Cable, the Minister claimed in the petition to the Secret Police, that the popular Prophet demanded the money from him, to assist him make his aspiration to become Oyo state governor, possible.
Adelabu, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, is among those contesting the state gubernatorial election in 2027.
Recall that Adelabu had in 2019 lost the election to the incumbent Governor Seyi Makinde.
But, in the petition to the DSS Adelabu claimed that the Lagos Prophet promised to assist him get the position this time around, provided he could provide the money.
In the petition dated October 13, 2025, signed by Bolaji Tunji, the minister’s Special Adviser on slStrategic Communications and Media Relations, Adelabu accused Ayodele of making false prophecies intended to malign his reputation after he rebuffed all efforts from the cleric, who allegedly demanded a huge sum of money and expensive spiritual items.
“I write to formally draw the attention of the Department of State Services (DSS) to the extortive, deceitful, and inciting activities of one self-acclaimed pastor known as Primate Elijah Ayodele, of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, whose actions have become not only personally distressing to the Honourable Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, but also capable of disturbing public peace and undermining the integrity of the political process in Oyo State,” the petition reads.
“Since his tenure as the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and particularly in the period leading up to his current aspiration to serve as the Governor of Oyo State, this individual had persistently approached him with unsolicited offers of “spiritual intercession” purportedly to guarantee electoral success.
“Under this guise, he had on several occasions demanded huge sums of money and expensive spiritual items, cumulatively amounting to over N150 million (one hundred and fifty million naira), as purported prerequisites for divine favour. The minister had consistently declined his requests, believing that his political ambition is driven by genuine service to the people and not by any spiritual manipulation or fetish practice.
“Following the Honourable Minister’s refusal to accede to his extortionate demands, Primate Ayodele has embarked on a campaign of malicious and false prophecies targeted at discrediting him publicly. He has gone as far as declaring through various media channels that ‘God told him he will not win the election’ and has recently made more provocative and inciting statements suggesting that he would fail because of his association with the ‘Èmi Lòkan’ slogan (“It’s my turn”).
“As a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he had previously chosen to ignore his antics to avoid unnecessary public confrontation with a religious figure. However, Primate Ayodele’s continued propagation of these false prophecies, which are evidently retaliatory and malicious in nature, now pose a threat not only to the minister’s reputation but also to public order and confidence in the democratic process.
“I therefore urge the Department of State Services to kindly investigate the activities of the said Pastor Ayodele for extortion, blackmail, and deliberate dissemination of false and inciting information; compel him to retract his false prophecies and issue a formal written apology; and bring him under the force of the law, in accordance with relevant provisions of the Nigerian Constitution and Criminal Code, to deter similar fraudulent religious practices in the future.”
Meanwhile, Ayodele while reacting to the Minister’s claim, during one of his sermon in his church in Lagos said Adelabu will fail in his quest to be Oyo state helmsman in 2027.
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