David Olaniyi Oyedepo
Nigeria’s richest pastor and Winners’ Chapel founder,
David Oyedepo, flaunts a vast business empire worth billions of naira. And
there is no end to his material acquisitions
To thousands of his devotees, David Olaniyi Oyedepo,
billionaire businessman and presiding bishop at the Living Faith Church, better
known as Winners’ Chapel, is a preacher of immense spiritual endowment. Fondly
addressed as Papa by his congregation, Oyedepo is held in awe – the kind
reserved for deities. The cleric’s deistic clout, however, transcends his
Winners’ Chapel enclave.
To many outside his fold, the prosperity preacher, who owns
homes in London and the United States, and has been owner of four private jets
so far, is gleaned from his insatiable material bequest. In 2010, Forbes, the
respected American business magazine which keeps a tab on the world’s rich,
listed Oyedepo as Nigeria’s wealthiest pastor, with an estimated networth of
$150mn (about N23bn). Oyedepo is only followed on the rich list by another
Nigerian flamboyant pastor, Chris Oyakhilome of the Believers’ Loveworld
Ministries, a.k.a. Christ Embassy, whose worth was put at between N4.7bn and
N7bn. In Nigeria, Oyedepo conveniently leads the growing list of
pastorpreneurs, church founders exploiting the passion and emotion that
Christianity commands to feather their nests.
A proponent of prosperity Christianity, Oyedepo is
unapologetic about the materialistic tinge to his gospel. In taking to
ministering, God, he repeatedly claims, told him to “make my people rich”. He
describes his prosperity-centric teachings as “covenant software for
programming yourself into victories and triumphs”. With abiding faith in God,
there are no limits, he insists, to how prosperous a man can be. And God’s
word, he says, is a goldmine. “It is loaded with treasures — treasures for your
pleasure, treasures for your comfort,” he pontificates.
Oyedepo’s business interests span manufacturing, petrol
station, bakery, pure water factory, plant (bulldozers, etc.) hiring,
education, restaurant, supermarket, bookshop, internet cafe, real estate and
the latest addition, aviation. He owns the thriving Dominion Publishing House,
DPH, which has turned out countless Christian and motivational literature –
usually centred on prosperity – bearing his name as the author, and
audio-visual materials. The DPH has more than four million copies of Oyedepo’s
works – many of them bestsellers – and those of his wife, Faith, in print.
The most known of the pastor’s many lines of business are
his range of educational institutions. Most famous among them is the Covenant
University, Ota, where the pastor is the Chancellor. Oyedepo told his
congregation that he encountered God in 1981 in a vision that directed him to
develop humanity through education.
•Money-spinner: Oyedepo’s Faith Tabernacle is easily one
of the biggest church auditoriums in the world
The move to actualise the “vision” began earnestly in 1999
after the dedication of the Faith Tabernacle, which he boasts of as the world’s
largest church auditoriums. Funding for the establishment of the university
confirmed Oyedepo as shrewd as the most shrewd of businessmen come. At every
service, a special envelope marked “CUP” (Covenant University Project) was
circulated for members to donate their contributions towards the school
project. The CUP funding, largely from the poor and medium income earners, was
exclusive of the regular handouts in tithes, offerings and ‘seeds’ from the
teeming members and well-wishers. It was also exclusive of other huge
contributions from the affluent church members. Oyedepo, it was alleged, once
received a single donation of N400 million from a well-known Lagos business
tycoon with interests in publishing and oil & gas.
Oyedepo was assisted in construction of the school’s
structures by many devout members of the church, skilled and unskilled, who
fell over one another either carrying blocks or fetching water or just offering
free labour. The university took off actively in October 2002 with the
admission of the first batch of 1,500 students. But if many of the church
members thought that, by virtue of their financial contributions to the CUP and
their manual labour, they had a university they could call their own and
conveniently send their children to for tertiary education, they were soon
rudely awakened. The elitist fees Oyedepo fixed were, and remain, way beyond
what most of the parents can afford. Covenant University owners currently
charge not less than N500,000 for a degree course. Oyedepo’s apologists
maintain that the school administers partial scholarships for education to poor
church members, but have been unable to put such details like the number of
students that benefit and the amount involved, to their claim.
•Covenant University, Ota
An Advertisement manager in a leading magazine publishing
firm narrated that the church continued to circulate the CUP envelope even
after the university had taken off for what it (the church) said was for the
school’s growth and development. For the manager, that was the last straw. “I
stopped my family from attending the church. When the university was being
constructed, my wife was always eager to go all the way from our residence in
Akute, Ogun State, to the site in Ota, to carry blocks even when she was very
reluctant to supervise work on our own site in Akute there. Worse, after the
school took off and we were shown in clear terms it is not built for our
children, its owners continued to ask us to donate to the CUP. I knew it was
time I came to my senses,” he remarked.
Although the university authorities are confirmed to have
been accommodating to followers of all religions on admission matters, a
peculiar case last year challenged that virtue. The school allegedly refused to
admit a muslim candidate, Abdulgafar Ayomide Salami, despite satisfying the
admission requirements. The institution blamed “inconsistencies” in Salami’s
application for its action, a claim the candidate’s father, Taiwo, vehemently
denied. “They should just be bold enough to admit it. They discriminated
against my child on the basis of his religion, and that is so unfortunate,”
Taiwo fumed.
Oyedepo has established another tertiary institution,
Landmark University in Omu-Aran (his hometown) in Kwara State. It officially
opened in March last year. The university is believed to have been built with
the staggering sum of $100m. Oyedepo claimed that the Landmark initiative was a
response to calls from his kinsmen that he replicate the Covenant model in his
hometown. It is most unlikely, however, that many residents of Omu-Aran will be
able to afford the fees of the new university. But Landmark University’s
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Matthew Ola-Rotimi Ajayi’s explanation was that the
institution came to fill the void created by the dwindling standard and
paralysis, occasioned by strikes and social vices, in the public educational
system. “The institution was established in response to these challenges,
poised not only to break new grounds, but also to ensure that the institution’s
footprints are left on the sand of time,” said Ajayi.
•A Gulfstream V bought by Bishop Oyedepo is one of the
most reliable and comfortable luxury airplanes.
The VC said agriculture is the focal point of the new
university. This, he said, is in demonstration of its commitment to being part
of the global response to the impending food crisis. Specifically, he said, the
university has set, as its primary objective, a commitment towards an agrarian
revolution, making the institution’s farm not only an enviable centre of
excellence, but also the food basket of the country. This, he claimed, prompted
the institution, through its proprietor – Winners’ Chapel – to award “100 per
cent scholarship” to all the agricultural students of the institution,
including agricultural engineering. To drive the agricultural revolution, Ajayi
claimed, the school is investing hundreds of millions of naira as scholarships
to motivate all the agricultural students of the institution, while also
investing heavily on teaching and research equipment so as to enhance
enterprise agriculture training. In addition, other support services –
financial, technical and material – required for sustainable mechanised farming
are also provided for the students.
Not unexpectedly, there is an entrepreneurial method to
drive the scholarship ‘madness’. Into the institution is built a thriving farm
project – comprising poultry, fishery, crop farming and feedmill – whose
products are said to be doing well in the market. In response to the increasing
demands of the institution’s products, the university has embarked on the
second phase of its expansion programme on the farm. It has commenced massive
production of the Landmark Bread while plans for production of Landmark bottled
water are at an advanced stage, among other products in the pipeline. As a
matter of policy, the VC said, the entire university community – staff and
students – irrespective of course of study, are engaged in one form of
agricultural practice or the other.
A third university, it is believed, will soon become
operational in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. It is being located in the
expansive 560-acre Goshen City, a replica of the massive Canaanland at Ota,
Ogun State. The pastor is said to have already completed at Goshen City,
situated along the Abuja-Keffi Road, a multi-billion naira housing project, a
15,000-capacity sanctuary, a printing press, and primary and secondary schools.
Oyedepo is also believed to be planning a multi-million dollar college in
upstate New York, United States.
Oyedepo’s massive investment in education at the secondary
level is the Faith Academy group of colleges spread across Nigeria and run by
Faith, his wife. Faith Academy, a full boarding secondary school which opened
in 1999, belongs to the country’s elitist league of middle-level schools that
make parents pay through the nose for services rendered. The school’s fees
range from N250,00 to N350,000. On the Ibadan-Ife road, Faith Academy is
currently completing its sprawling complex of not less than six imposing
three-storey buildings. Besides the Faith Academy secondary schools, Oyedepo
has been smart enough to also establish the Covenant University Secondary
School which charges fees that are no less considerate of the lean finances of
Winners’ Chapel’s poor followers. Faith, Oyedepo’s wife, also runs Kingdom
Heritage Model Schools, the nursery and primary arm located in different cities
in Nigeria. There are about 90 Kingdom Heritage schools scattered across the
country.
•Students of one of Oyedepo’s schools. The institutions
are reputed for charging very high fees
Oyedepo’s business acumen is well-honed. The expansive
landed property alone on which the Canaan business empire sits is estimated by
estate valuers to be worth, at least, N10 billion. Over time, the pastor has
been acquiring many villages adjoining the original property he purchased in
the 1980s, so much so that now, were the City to be an ordinary village or town
rather than a church monolith that it is, it is big enough to have its own
first-class oba, its traditional ruler.
As it is, Oyedepo plays well the role of Canaanland’s
traditional ruler and Chief Executive Officer. Church members and workers on
the 5,000-acre estate both rever and fear the 57-year-old Papa as he
superintends the conglomerate of business entities there. The church itself is
a weekly money-spinner. Oyedepo is so shrewd as to concentrate the Sunday
service at only Canaanland. Unlike the Redeemed Christian Church of God, the
Living Faith Church (Winners’ Chapel) does not encourage the flowering of
branches, though it equally has thousands of followers. There is only a handful
of branches and then house fellowships. On Sunday, all Oyedepo’s followers,
especially in Lagos and Ogun states, wishing to attend service are compelled to
do so at Canaanland. From only one service of two hours the church operated
every Sunday some years ago, it now runs four services. The Sango-Ota-Idiroko
road as well as other access roads to the expressway leading to the church
experience traffic gridlocks every Sunday from morning till afternoon as
Winners’ faithful populate them.
From the thousands of congregants comes a rake-in for the
church in millions of naira and hard currencies, in offerings, tithes and
pledges. An an usher confided in this magazine, the church makes, at least, N30
million every Sunday. And even this sum pales into a measly pittance compared
with what is garnered annually at the church’s Shiloh week-long special
programme held every November attended by devotees in both Nigeria and from
abroad, and at every New Year’s eve service.
The church also runs a factory which produces the Hebron
sachet water. The product is hot number among church members who view the water
as ‘divine’, and thus believe it could help unburden them of their afflictions.
It also sells well in the immediate Otta environment. Also operating in
Canaanland is a bakery, a filling station, a restaurant, an internet cafe, a
bookshop, supermarkets and a microfinance bank. Oyedepo’s investment in
property also continues to grow. On the vast land, the church has recently completed
a massive housing project and the houses will soon go on sale. Already
available are guest houses for paying church members and guests.
Done successfully with medium-scale businesses, the
flamboyant preacher has decided to go for the big one. Last week, reports did
the rounds about the wealthy preacher’s latest addition to his business lines.
The pastor has been reported to have floated an airline, Dominion Air, on whose
board he is to sit as Chairman, as he naturally does of all his other
businesses. An account has it that the airline project had been in the works
for six years. The plan was only unfurled this year. Towards this, a number of
aircraft has been acquired, and none of them is said to be on lease. Another
version of the reports, however, claims that the crippling cost of maintaining
his four private jets forced the pastor to set up an airline where he would put
the planes to commercial use.
An online news medium with bias for Nigerian news,
Saharareporters, quoted a source in Winners’ Chapel as having said that each of
the aircraft costs Oyedepo some $1,000 per hour in parking fees and
maintenance. “Last year, as staff costs, fuel prices and landing fees
escalated, Bishop Oyedepo had contemplated selling two of the jets. But when
buyers were not forthcoming, he turned to Plan B: to set up Dominion Air and
put the jets to commercial use,” claimed the medium.
Among Oyedepo’s fleet of jets is a Gulfstream, a business
aircraft that is not capable of carrying more than 19 passengers. Apparently
overwhelmed with the colossal costs of managing four planes, Oyedepo, had, late
last year, reportedly put two of his four private planes up for sale. That was
few months after he acquired the Gulfstream V Jet, his fourth plane worth
$35mn, and planned a private aircraft hangar. Before he acquired the Gulfstream
V, Oyedepo owned a Challenger 604 and a Gulfstream IV. It is thus believed that
Oyedepo’s new airline may be targeting the country’s aviation sector’s
lucrative air charter services, where only a handful of passengers are ferried
at princely sums. Charter services are a staple for the country’s rich,
especially business tycoons, state governors and other top politicians, who
prefer its exclusive services to the regular commercial carriers. Oyedepo’s
church and Oyedepo himself would, as has become their trademark of keeping
sealed lips on their dealings, not confirm or deny reports that the bishop is
starting an airline.
Oyedepo has attracted flak for amassing huge personal
fortune using the church as his springboard, when some of his followers can
barely afford basic supplies, let alone enjoy the luxurious lifestyle he leads.
But the capitalist pastor continues to trudge on, and has been making a success
of his business ventures.
Oyedepo’s expanding business frontiers has re-ignited the
long-running debate that places of worship be made to pay taxes to fund
critical public infrastructure, education and healthcare. Going by extant laws,
a church registered as an entity for the advancement of religious ideals is not
expected to pay tax, but where it engages in business, it would be subject to
taxation. “Agreed, Oyedepo is a businessman (and not your everyday pastor). Can
we begin to see his taxes and for him to undertake Corporate Social
Responsibility? The next time you think of taking on MTN for being such cruel
capitalists after they invested their hard-earned cash, try asking how much
Covenant University charges after church money was invested in it,” remarked
Atom Lim, a blogger.
Since establishing his Pentecostal ministry in 1981, his
flock has grown in astronomical fashion. The 50,000-seat Faith Tabernacle where
he holds court is acclaimed as one the world’s largest worship centres. The
church also maintains thousands of mission stations in about 40 nations of
Africa, Europe, Jamaica and America. Among Oyedepo’s thriving foreign outposts,
which send revenue to the headquarters at Ota, Nigeria are those in Ghana. But
in 2004, the high-flying Ghanaian arm of the church drew Oyedepo’s ire when its
head, Bishop George Adjeman was suspended for discontinuing the remittance of
money to the headquarters. The Ghana parishes were then said to be repatriating
to the Nigerian head church about $60,000 in monthly revenues.
Oyedepo’s unconventional pastoring has been attracting to
him strident condemnation and criticisms, although he doesn’t ever seem
perturbed by them. Sources that had worked for him at Canaanland said he does
not suffer staff and pastors gladly. Two years ago, the Newswatch magazine
reported cases of two pastors of the Winners’ Chapel Oyedepo had allegedly
sacked when they could no longer perform their pastoral duties. Three pastors –
Akah Ikenna (Benin), Ifeakwachukwu Sunday (Asaba) and Dick Abiye (Port
Harcourt) – were actually said to have been involved in auto crashes that
resulted in disabilities. According to the magazine’s reports, the pastors of
their respective parishes on N45,000 each per month, were on official
assignment for Winners’ Chapel when the vehicles they were travelling in were
involved in the accidents.
Sunday, ordained a pastor of the Living Faith Church on 16
January 2001, was serving at Umunede, Delta State, as a pastor of the Winners’
Chapel when his world began collapsing on him. As he narrated to Newswatch,
sometime in 2006, he went to Lagos for a meeting of the church. On his way
back, he had a motor accident that nearly claimed his life. One of his legs
broke into two and he also suffered severe dislocations in the pelvic area. He
was admitted in a hospital in Benin where he went through several surgical
operations. One of them was a limb operation in which steel braces were
inserted into the leg and the pelvis. He was then discharged and asked to come
back for a second operation to remove the foreign objects from his leg and
pelvis. But, as he claimed, the church abandoned him at the hospital in Benin,
“but through the help of some brethren, I came back to my station”, bed-ridden.
In that state, Pastor Sunday was redeployed to the church’s
district office at Asaba. Strangely, he got another letter the same day
terminating his appointment as a pastor of Winners’ Chapel. Somehow, in that
agonising condition, Sunday travelled to the church’s headquarters in Ota, Ogun
State, to appeal to Oyedepo for a re-consideration of his case. He recalled:
“Luckily, I met Oyedepo himself as he was coming out from the church. After I
had introduced myself, he asked me what I wanted. I told him I needed money for
the operation to remove the metals from my body. He then directed me to one
Ndubuisi who was then the secretary. Ndubuisi asked me what it would cost and I
told him I did not know till we meet the doctors. He then asked me to go and do
so and get back to them. When I got the documents from the doctors, I went and
submitted them to him, but the church never acted on them.”
In one of the documents, dated 13 October 2007, from the
Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, OAUTH, Ile-Ife, signed by E.P.
Osaigbovo, consultant, intensivist/traumatologist, and addressed to the
church’s senior Pastor in Asaba, the hospital billed Sunday N230,000. The
letter read: “The aforementioned (Sunday) individual has been our patient for
the past 18 months. He was managed by our surgical team following multiple
fractures to the neck and shaft of the femoral bone as a result of injuries
sustained in a road traffic accident. Following-up radiological evaluation
reveals that there is enough callous formation in the steel-plated fracture. He
is, therefore, billed for plate removal – a procedure that will involve
revisiting the fracture site so as to remove the implants.”
A desperate Sunday said he wrote to Oyedepo on 12 August 2009:
“I had written series of letters to you, attached with the medical bill for my
surgery, but all to no avail. I believe the letters did not get to you. From
the time I was relieved of my service to the church, it has not been easy for
me following pains from the injury. Now, I cannot stand for a period of three
minutes, not alone walk. I solicit for your fatherly care. I have nowhere else
to turn to but this organisation I once belonged to.” Till Sunday told
Newswatch his story published in the magazine’s 7 July 2010 edition, he never
got a response from Oyedepo.
Sunday, an employee of the National Fertiliser Company of
Nigeria, NAFCON, Port Harcourt before he resigned his appointment to be a
full-time staff/pastor at Winners’ Chapel, claimed that besides sacking him and
ejecting him from his quarters, the church would not even pay him his
entitlements. He explained he resigned his NAFCON appointment in line with the
church’s policy that a pastor and his wife shall not engage themselves in any
other job. Worse, on the domestic front, Sunday’s wife, both of whom had been
childless for over 10 years before the accident rendered him a vegetable,
abandoned him in his bedridden state.
Ikenna’s physical and financial condition is not different.
But while Sunday and Abiye elected to sue Oyedepo in God’s court for God to
judge him, Ikenna headed to court and popular Lagos-based lawyer, Festus
Keyamo, is handling the brief. They won the case at the Otta High Court. But
the defendants, Winners Chapel and Oyedepo, headed to the Appeal Court. The
case has been at the Appeal stage since 2009. Barrister Vitalis, Keyamo’s
deputy, expressed confidence Ikenna would win the case even if it goes up to
the Supreme Court because, as he put it, it was a clear case of man’s inhumanity
to man.
Oyedepo himself would not immediately respond to enquiries
from Newswatch on the matter. But his spokesmen were quoted to have retorted in
an official statement that: “They were not abandoned. They were treated on
moral ground and in demonstration of good christian character. The church
(Winners’ Chapel) has the right to review its workers’ performances and release
from service any staff it feels his or her services are no longer needed.”
It was not until in an interview published in the 11 November
2011 edition of Newswatch that Oyedepo publicly commented on the issue. His
words: “I almost cursed them (i.e. the three pastors). If there is any case
that is serious to take to the court, you go to the court and lawyers will take
charge.” Oyedepo also responded to questions on whether members truly
contributed to build Covenant University and are still contributing. Admitting
the contributions, the capitalist pastor remarked: “Yes, from the offerings
that they give. From the offerings that they give and the supplies that God
makes. It’s amazing.” He did not explain the nature of those celestial
“supplies”.
And to a question that “those who contributed are not able
to send their children to his university because of the (high) cost’, Oyedepo
calmly contradicted himself on “contributions” he had only minutes earlier
admitted that the church collects from members: “We don’t contribute here.
People give to the Lord,” he stated. Then he added: “But you see, each one
(member) goes for what he can afford in the market (educational market, that
is). Even the public schools they are talking about pay as much, if not more.
So people are just making noise for nothing. It depends on what you can
afford.” Oyedepo would also not point to a single public university that
charges “as much, if not more” than Covenant does.
Oyedepo has also had similar brushes with junior pastors at
the church’s headquarters. Two pastors, who once questioned the bishop’s
dictatorial manner of running the entity, had to leave the church to set up
their own ministries. Their complaints ranged from poor welfare, to the
absolute power Oyedepo wields. A number of workers at some of the business
entities set up by the church have also had to complain of the poor
remuneration, even though they feel their employers could afford better pay.
One of such workers was a staff in the kitchen of Faith Academy, the secondary
school. On duty from early morning till 6p.m., she was earning N9,000 per
month. Apart from paying for public transportation from her residence to the
Winners’ Chapel main gate, she would need to pay another N100 for the internal
transportation arrangement from the main gate to her Faith Academy duty
station. She was always complaining of the laborious nature of the kitchen job,
which demanded that she alone fry eight cartons of fish every day, apart from
other chores. With transportation fare taking so much toll on her miserly
salary, and the kitchen’s labour taking so much toll on her health, she didn’t
need any telling before she walked away from the job only six months after she
was enlisted.
Oyedepo’s controversial ways also achieved international
notoriety last year after a YouTube video showing him slapping a teenage female
worshipper became an internet sensation. During one of the church’s deliverance
services in 2009, Oyedepo had accused the girl of being possessed with
witchcraft, a charge the youngster stoutly rejected. “I am not a winch; I am a
winch for Jesus,” she insisted, on her knees. Oyedepo repeated his “you are a
witch” assertion and apparently expected the girl to quake and submit to his
own exact words. But the girl stuck to her words. Stunned by her guts, the
pastor, transferring the microphone he was holding in his right hand to his
left, powerfully hit the girl’s left cheek with a slap that visibly rocked her,
boasting: “Do know who you’re talking too? ” He then began swearing away at the
girl: “Foul demon! You are a foul demon…You are not set for deliverance and you
are free to go to hell.”
That drama of what came to be known as “holy slap” elicited
criticisms from many observers, some of whom cracked rude jokes about the
preacher’s unusual methods. But Oyedepo dismissed such criticisms, saying he
didn’t regret his actions. “People now complain on the internet that I slapped
a witch. If I see another one, I’ll slap again,” the pastor reportedly
boasted.
The pastor’s unbridled desire for wealth also makes him
unpopular with some other clerics. One of his most vitriolic critics is Tunde
Bakare, pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly and running mate to General (retd.)
Muhammadu Buhari in the 2011 presidential election. Bakare constantly rebukes
prosperity preachers of Oyedepo’s hue, describing them as “apostates”. He
regards them as “only interested in the gospel of wealth”. In a fit of rage,
Bakare once publicly tore a book written by Oyedepo, claiming its contents were
contrary to the teachings of Christ.
Another notable cleric, Anthony Cardinal Okogie also chided
the likes of Oyedepo for allegedly placing materialism high above the gospel.
“You claim to be a pastor looking after souls. I know you cannot look after the
soul without the body, but why would a pastor give 90 per cent of his time to
the body and give only 10 per cent to the soul. I wonder what kind of pastors they
are?” Okogie queried. According to the Catholic bishop: “That shows really that
they are not sheperds of the flock. They have been skinning the flock, taking
out of the milk of the flock”.
Though still being kept under the radar, Oyedepo, with his
new airline project, has further invited reproach from a section of the
Nigerian public, who also condemn the preacher’s compulsive desire for wealth.
“Pastor Oyedepo, by his choice of businesses, has severally demonstrated a
disconnect between himself and hundreds of thousands of poor Christians who he
claims to have come to deliver,” said Lawrence Ofili , who belongs to a faction
of the opposition movement, the Save Nigeria Group, founded by Pastor Bakare.
Ofili argued that Oyedepo’s decision to float an airline is a misplaced
priority. “His Faith Tabernacle accommodates 50,000 worshippers every Sunday.
How many of them are going to fly Dominion Air? Honestly this project is not
for the poor. He should have settled for mechanised farming to engage
unemployed men and women,” the critic said.
Similarly, a blogger, Ofordile Tony-Okeke, in an online
post, challenged Oyedepo to channel more of his material endowment to
charitable ventures. “With about 70 per cent of Nigerians living in poverty,
Bishop Oyedepo would do well to invest financially in the poor in his church
and country. I am aware of what the World Mission Agency, an arm of the Living
Faith Ministry is doing, as it provides welfare and other health and
humanitarian services to the needy in the society,” wrote Tony-Okeke. The
blogger, however, argues that the act of giving should never be enough. “We
should give as if all things depend on giving. Bishop David Oyedepo should
give, give and give until it hurts him. That way he will be doing a sacrifice
like Jesus Christ, his mentor, did,” said Tony-Okeke.
While Sunday has become almost a vegetable with a decaying
leg and abandoned by his wife and the church he was serving before the road
traffic accident, Bishop David Oyedepo is harvesting billions of naira from the
church and other business empires he established. While the church policy
doesn’t allow pastors and their wives to do any other job, Oyedepo, with Faith
his wife in tow, is a pastorpreneur extraordinaire. Oyedepo’s business range
has no limits.
Born on 27 September 1954, Oyedepo began his ministry in May
1981. On 17 September 1983, Enoch Adeboye, general overseer of the Redeemed
Christian Church of God, ordained him and Florence, now Faith, his wife, as
pastors. He labelled himself a bishop five years later.
– The News
