Lanre Fakorede
lanrefak2000@gmail.com
When the great vision of building a Deliverance Stadium and International Conference Centre was conceived by the gifted and anointed man of God, Dr. Daniel Olukoya and shared among the faithful in the church, it was greeted with a great enthusiastic applause and like in the days of Nehemiah, the shout of “Let us rise up and build for the Lord” rented the air.
The centre is to be built at the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries (MFM) Prayer City, at Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ogun State. It can contain about 500,000 at a sit. And it is estimated to cost about N35billion.
Like Nehemiah, who motivated the Jews to rebuild the Jerusalem’s city wall that had lain in ruins for more than 120years in just 52 days. Dr. Olukoya has been encouraging and mobilizing church members across the globe to join him in the course of building this massive edifice at the Prayer City which when completed is expected to be largest auditorium in the whole world.
With a task as daunting as the rebuilding of the Jerusalem’s city wall; he knew he needed dedicated and committed members worldwide who can partner with him in order to achieve this great vision.
Hence, a group called MFM Prayer City Partners and Friends Group (PCF) was launched with Dr. Jide Ayinla as it Chairman. And has the former Oceanic Bank as its official banker. The PCF among other duties is to gather the all resources contributed by members worldwide – financial and material contributions together for the project for easy management.
For easy Coordination, the church was divided into 24 zones in Nigeria.
The Headquarters church of each zone is to collect all cash deposited in any of the Oceanic Bank within their zone for upward transmission to the National Headquarters of the church at Prayer City.
Also, there are big boxes at various locations within the prayer city where people can drop their financial supports toward the project. Various currencies (naira, dollar, pounds, euro etc) are normally found in some of these boxes at times.
Things are moving accordingly, until when one ‘Pastor’ Chinedu Udechukwu, who is one of the close and trusted aides of the General Overseer, Dr. D.K Olukoya and very close to the wife of the General Overseer, Pastor Shade Olukoya and who is also the Youths Pastor of the church, suddenly made himself Sanballat, who wanted to distract, discourage and interfere in the work of the kingdom like in the days of Nehemiah.
‘Pastor’ Chinedu Udechukwu was a graduate of University of Lagos (now Moshood Abiola University) in Building Engineering. It was gathered by some of his lecturers that while in school; he cheated virtually from year 1 to year 4 in all the exams. When the news of what ‘Pastor’ Chinedu Udechukwu perpetuated at MFM got to them through one of their colleagues, who is also a member of the church and knew about the unholy incident carried out by ‘Pasor’ Chinedu Udechukwu, they were not disappointed at all. One of them even said, a corrupt tree, no matter the amount of fertilizer or manure you apply to it, would surely bring forth a corrupt fruit.
Although, ‘Pastor’ Chinedu was not the financial secretary to the PCF but he was appointed by the Chairman, Dr. Jide Ayinla, who has been running the affairs of the group unilaterally alongside with this ‘Pastor’ Chinedu Udechukwu, one Bro. Johnson and sis Elizabeth who is the financial secretary of PCF. ‘Pastor’ Chinedu would be the one to go round and collect all cash from the boxes at various locations within the Prayer City under the instruction from Dr. Ayinla.
Unknowingly to the church, ‘Pastor’ Chinedu would collect all the cash; put the foreign currencies to one side and the Naira to another side. With the Naira, he would deposit some to his private account and deposited the remaining into the PCF’s account with the former Oceanic Bank. He would also take part of the foreign currencies and do the same through his domiciliary account he opened with one of the new generation banks. The remaining foreign currencies will be recorded into the PCF account at the Prayer City.
In less than few months, ‘Pastor’ Chinedu became millionaire over night by stealing millions of Naira from the money met for the construction of the Prayer City Project. From his largesse; he bought the latest Toyota 4 Runner Jeep that cost almost N8m. When he brought the car to the church, he told Dr. Olukoya that one of his brothers in Canada sent the car to him. He also bought a building at Isheri Magodo and has other landed properties across highbrow areas in Lagos State. Who knows the kind of mansion he would have built in his hometown from the stolen money. God will judge.
However, bubble burst on him when the bank manager decided to know the owner of the account when he saw the rate at which millions of Naira is being deposited periodically. So, ‘Pastor’ chinedu was invited by the bank manager, though, the bank manager did not talk to him one-on-one, he only took a look at him from a distance when ‘Pastor’ Chinedu came into the office reserved for him.
On seeing him, the manager tried to recollect where he knew his face. The manager was able to recollect seeing him on many occasions with MFM car. And knowing the Chairman, Dr. Jide Ayinnla of the PCF, the manager invited him to his office and made more findings about ‘Pastor’ Chinedu before making his own observations known to Dr. Jide about the ‘pastor’ outrageous savings.
At this point, a surveillance was placed on ‘Pastor’ Chinedu without his knowledge. Each time, he went to gather the cash in all the boxes at the Prayer City, his account will surely increase marginally within one to two days.
After enough evidence, the Chairman, Dr. Jide confronted him. Initially he denied and threw caution into the air. But later when Dr. Jide presented some facts to him, he started to confess that it was the devil that made use of him. He immediately promised to return some money that particular day. He has returned N9m, N8m and N4m respectively back to the PCF. Later in the cause of investigation by PCF, it was also discovered that ‘Pastor’ Chinedu has a domiciliary account where he normally deposited the foreign currencies. The total sum of money that ‘Pastor’ Chinedu allegedly stole from the church was N85m (Eighty Five Million Naira).
This unholy incident has really brought a temporary set back on the great project. Not only that, member of the church who is aware of the case, are not happy with the manner the case is being treated. The case is being treated with levity because the church is trying to play safe and probably becuase ‘Pastor’ Chinedu is very close to the wife of the General Overseer, Pastor Shade Olukoya. And he is also among the notorious ‘holy’ group that include Pastor David Popoola, his brother, Pastor Tobi Popoola and one Bro. Tunde who do not have regards for anybody in the church. They are too pompous and talk anyhow to members of the church.
They lack respect and their mission and vision is just to use their closeness to Dr. Olukoya to enrich themselves without minding whose horse is gore.
Some members who are aware about the case are seriously complaining bitterly with the way Dr. Olukoya has refused to take necessary action against ‘Pastor’ Chinedu. Not only that, the ‘boys’ are boasting that nothing can happen. Even the main looter has not shown any sign of remorse and is still bragging around the prayer city because he believes he is very close to seat of power.
In the book of Eccl. 3:1-3, the Bible says to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build.
I believe for the project to be completed within the stipulated time, the bad plants need to be uprooted and destroy.
The action of ‘Pastor’ Chinedu, if not check will continue to spread like a wild fire. Like the way Nehemiah dealt with Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem, ‘Pastor’ Chinedu and any other person that want to interfere in the kingdom assignment should be dealt with severely.
Let me also appeal to members all over the world who are annoyed and not pleased with what has happened not to be discouraged.
Like Apostle Paul said: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ.”
Let us keep pressing forward, forgetting the things of the past, past failures including ‘Pastor’ Chinedu unholy and notorious act and make sure that we keep on supporting the great work that God has committed into the hand of our general overseer.
To ‘Pastor’ Chinedu and co., they should remember the word of the Psalmist, “evil shall hunt the violent man to destroy him.” And the word of King Solomon, “The Lord will destroy the house of the proud”… “Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord: though hand joins in hand, he shall not be unpunished”.
Also, my advice to the church, is to discipline any member who is found wanting irrespective of that person closeness to G.O or his wife. In a congregation where there is genuine love, brethren who are indulging in sin (2 Cor. 13:2, 1 Tim 5:20) or want to hinder or slow down the propagation of the gospel (Acts 13:6-12) must not be spared. The church must be firm with these kinds of people (including ‘Pastor’ Chinedu and co) because if it is not, they will gradually destroy the entire congregation. They will gradually introduce the ‘killer-germ’ into the congregation hence; they should be gotten rid of before they destroy the whole church. Their salvation should be questioned.
Any of these brethren are like cancer in the body. If you locate cancer and the affected area is removed, then there is hope for the rest of the body. That is what the Holy Spirit did to Ananias and Saphira, so that the rest of the church can continue to grow.
In conclusion, any person that will cause himself to be a cancer in the body of Christ must be dealt with sternly. Any ‘holy’ robber like ‘Pastor’ Chinedu should be exposed and not be spared.
What is being obtained in the secular world (especially, in Nigeria, where corruption afflicts virtually all parts of the Nigerian society) should not be allowed to roll into the church.