This is a story published by
UK Daily Mail
this morning. They are accusing Bishop Oyedepo's Winners Chapel of
exploiting their worshipers and receiving over £16 million in donations
from them. See it below...
A church run by a controversial
multi-millionaire African preacher has been accused of ‘cynical
exploitation’ after its British branch received £16.7 million in
donations from followers who were told that God would give them riches
in return.
Followers are
ferried in double-decker shuttle buses to the church, handed slips
inviting them to make debit card payments, and are even told obeying the
ministry’s teachings will make them immune from illness.
Today’s
Mail on Sunday revelations about the Winners’ Chapel movement have
prompted the Charity Commission to review the charitable status of the
church – one of the fastest-growing in the UK.
Winners’
Chapel is part of a worldwide empire of evangelical ministries run by
Nigeria’s wealthiest preacher David Oyedepo, who has an estimated
£93 million fortune, a fleet of private jets and a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Dubbed ‘The Pastorpreneur’, he was
accused earlier this year of slapping the face of a young woman he said
was a witch. The assault case was struck out but is being appealed.
Branches
of the church have sprung up in major UK cities in a huge recruitment
drive centred on Mr Oyedepo’s ‘prosperity gospel’. This claims that
congregants who make regular donations and pay tithes – a ten per cent
levy on their income – will be rewarded financially by God.
Followers
are urged to target vulnerable people such as the lonely, the sick, the
homeless and the suicidal as potential candidates for conversion.
Last
night, Labour MP Paul Flynn said Winners’ Chapel was cynically
exploiting supporters. ‘They [Winners’ Chapel] are making clearly
spurious claims and it seems to be a cynical exploitation of the
gullible,’ he said.
Referring
to the slapping incident, Mr Flynn added: ‘What is also alarming is the
reported violence and the lack of respect for the status of women. It’s
taking us back to a previous age of ignorance and prejudice that we all
thought the church had escaped.’
This newspaper’s investigation can further disclose:
- Congregants
are handed a payment slip requesting payments using cheque, cash or
debit card when they enter London’s Winners’ Chapel.
- Donations to the ministry in England almost doubled from £2.21 million to £4.37 million between 2006 and 2010.
- Mr
Oyedepo’s superchurch in Nigeria received £794,000 or 73 per cent of
the charitable donations paid out by the British Winners’ Chapel between
2007 and 2010. This was despite claims in Africa that he is enriching
himself at the expense of his devotees.
- The registered charity has spent £6.81 million on evangelism and ‘praise, worship and fellowship’.
- The
church’s ‘Joseph Squad’ preaches in British prisons and has a weekly
broadcast named ‘Liberation Hour’ on satellite and cable TV here.
In
the past three years, Winners’ Chapel churches have been established in
Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds and Bradford, adding to those in London,
Manchester, Dublin and Glasgow.
An
undercover Mail on Sunday reporter attended Sunday services at
Winners’ Chapel’s ‘London HQ’ in Dartford, Kent, which attracts 1,000
congregants – chiefly African and Caribbean immigrants. It is run like
‘a business conference’ by Mr Oyedepo’s son, David Oyedepo Jnr. Packed
buses deliver singing worshippers from South-East London, Essex and Kent
to the huge auditorium.
The
reporter saw a payment slip being given to every person entering the
church encouraging them to donate money by cheque or cash or to fill in a
form with their debit card details. The slip said tithes should be paid
separately using a ‘Kingdom Investment Booklet’ and the reporter was
informed that payments could also be made by phone. A pastor told the
worshippers: ‘You shall be financially promoted after this service in
Jesus’s name if you are ready to honour the Lord therefore with all your
givings, your tithes, your offerings, your Kingdom investment, your
sacrifices.’
Congregants were told to fill in their slips and hold them above their heads while the donations were blessed
 |
| A jet belong to Bishop Oyedepo |
The service was interspersed with
testimonies. ‘I received a bill from the bank that I didn’t understand,
so I prayed,’ said one congregant. ‘A few days later, the bank wrote to
apologise for their mistake – Hallelujah!’ ‘Hallelujah,’ the audience
shouted back.
Congregants
were told they could gain favour by persuading others to follow Mr
Oyedepo’s teachings. His son said: ‘Look around you. Someone is sick and
already wishing he or she were dead, that is a fruit ripe to harvest.
Someone is confounded and considering suicide as an option, that is
another fruit that is ripe to harvest.
‘Someone else is lonely and wondering if there is any future for him, that is another fruit ripe to harvest.
‘Also there are many men and women, young and old that are homeless, these are fruits ripe to harvest.’
The
reporter was taken, with 20 other new recruits, to a room where
preachers gave sermons claiming acceptance of the Lord would prevent
them ever being ill or suffering misfortune.
The
Mail on Sunday has seen video footage of Mr Oyedepo striking a woman
across the face and condemning her to hell after she said she was a
‘witch for Jesus’. He attacked her in a Winners’ Chapel superchurch,
believed to be in Nigeria, in front of worshippers. A separate video
shows him saying: ‘I slapped a witch here last year!’
In
May, he was sued for £800,000 over the alleged assault. The case was
struck out – a decision which is now reported to have been appealed.
The Winners’ Chapel movement, also
known as the Living Faith Church, has hundreds of churches in Nigeria
and across Africa, the Middle East, the UK and the US.
Mr
Oyedepo has received fierce criticism in Africa. One Nigerian
journalist accused him of ‘leading a growing list of pastorpreneurs –
church founders exploiting the passion and emotion that Christianity
commands to feather their nests’.
Catholic Cardinal Anthony Okogie
criticised such preachers for placing materialism above Jesus’s message.
He reportedly said: ‘They have been skinning the flock, taking out of
the milk of the flock.’
Among
Mr Oyedepo’s fleet of aircraft are said to be a Gulfstream 1 and
Gulfstream 4 private jets. It is also claimed he and his wife, Faith,
travel in expensive Jeeps flanked by convoys of siren-blaring vehicles.
He is the senior pastor of Faith Tabernacle, a 50,000-seat auditorium in
Lagos reputed to be the largest church in the world, and runs a
publishing company that distributes books carrying his message across
the world.
His other
business interests span manufacturing, petrol stations, bakeries, water
purification factories, recruitment, a university, restaurants,
supermarkets and real estate. The latest addition is a commercial
airline named Dominion Airlines.
A
Charity Commission spokesman said: ‘The Charity Commission is
currently assessing what, if any, regulatory role there is to play with
regard to the complaints made against the World Mission Agency. It is
important to clarify that this does not constitute an investigation at
this stage.’
Winners’ Chapel administrator Tunde Disu declined to comment.
