British worshippers Accuse Bishop David Oyedepo of Exploitation

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 super-church 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 apologize 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 super-church, 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 criticized 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.

NB: I guess there is probably nothing that The Mail newspaper unearthed in the Winners’ Chapel in the UK that does not happen on a larger scale in Ghana......Of tin gods, holy dictators and anointed tyrants.

TRIBAL BALANCE IN MILITARY

The composition of the Ghana Armed Forces and whether our Governments have committed themselves to striving at a regional and ethnical balance as the Constitution of Ghana requires have been a matter of conjecture and, many a time, unnecessary argument not really based on available facts.

The trend and phenomenon has pervaded since the Free Press of the Thommy Thompsons and Eben Quarcoos, around 1992, attempted a debate that was immediately shot down by apparatchiks in the then administration. 

Thirty years down the line, the canker festers, even in a climate people particularly politicians in power consider innocuous. Incidentally, those who spearhead such divisive, subversive tendencies are the first to accuse others of tribalism and fomenting trouble in the country.

Without taking any sides, and presenting the picture as it is – unless the names and positions or ranks we have been informed of are fictitious – DAYBREAK insists that Ghana may be sitting on a time bomb.

Aside of this is the culture that hallows ethnicity and cronyism above efficiency and professionalism which has also pervade the institution since late 70s. For instance, according to career soldier and Staff Officer of the Ghana Armed Forces, Lt. Colonel SK Ofosu-Appiah in his book ALLEGIANCE VERSUS INDISCIPLINE, he states: “…in matters of promotion and appointment, much consideration has been given to ‘whom you know’ and what ethnic group one comes from. This is criminal…”

Again, a former CDS and now National Security Advisor, Brigadier Nunoo-Mensah, commenting on the cringing lack of transparency in the service, confirmed recently “that when names of competent people were mentioned in the appointment of service chiefs, the tendency is for politicians to whine that “he is not one of us,” as captured by the Daily Graphic of March 31, 2009.

As we went to press, official information we gathered revealed that, of the total number of 938 Army Officers in the service, 228 are Ewes; of the 165 Navy officers; the Ewes are 39 and the Air Force has 50 Ewe officers out of 184 men. This is in spite of the fact that no official record exist as to the Ewes outnumbering any ethnical grouping in the country.  

In the case of the Other Ranks, the Ewes have 2646 soldiers out of the 9728 men in the Army, 458 Navy men out of the total figure of 1742 and in the Air Force; the number is 543 out of 1726.

The data on the composition of the Ghana Armed Forces as at date are as follows:

Officers:

Ashanti Region has 115 for Army, 17 for Navy, 16 for Air Force, bringing the total to 148 representing 11.50%; Brong Ahafo has 27 for Army, 7 for Navy, 10 for Air Force, bringing the total to 44 and representing 3.4% and the Central Region 100 for Army, 27 for Navy, 16 for Air Force, bringing the total to 143 and representing 11.11%.

Eastern Region has 143 for Army, 29 for Navy, 33 for Air Force bringing the total to 205 representing 15.93%, with Greater Accra having 105 for the Army, 15 for Navy, 27 for Air Force, bringing the total to 147 and representing 11.42%.

The Northern Region has 62 for Army, 8 for Navy, 10 for Air Force, bringing the total to 80 representing 6.22% whilst the Upper East Region has 75 for Army, 7 for Navy, 9 for Air Force bringing the total to 91 representing 7.07%; and the Upper West Region 52 for Army, 11 for Navy, 8 for Air Force bringing the total to 71 and representing 5.52%.

Controversial Volta Region has 228 for Army, 39 for Navy, 50 for Air Force, bringing the total to 317 representing 24.63% and finally, the Western Region, which has 31 for Army, 5 for Navy, 5 for Air Force, bringing the total to 41 and representing 3.18%.

Other Ranks:

Ashanti Region has 1055 for Army, 136 for Navy, 174 for Air Force bringing the total to 1365 representing 10.34%; Brong Ahafo has 518 for Army, 75 for Navy, 70 for Air Force, bringing the total to 663 representing 5.02% and Central Region has 954 for Army, 256 for Navy, 194 for Air Force, bringing the total to 1404 and representing 10.64%.

Eastern Region has 1868 for Army, 321 for Navy, 360 for Air Force, bringing the total to 2539 representing 19.32%, whilst Greater Accra has 619 for Army, 174 for Navy and 104 for Air Force, bringing the total to 897 and representing 6.80%.

Northern Region has 582 for Army, 77 for Navy and 70 for Air Force, bringing the total to 729 representing 5.52%; Upper East Region has 795 for Army, 120 for Navy and 98 for Air Force, bringing the total to 1013 and representing 7.68%.

Upper West Region has 380 for Army, 52 for Navy and 73 for Air Force, bringing the total to 505 and representing 3.83% whilst the Volta Region has 2646 for Army, 458 for Navy, 534 for Air Force, bringing the total to 3638 and representing 27.57%.

Western Region has 311 for Army, 73 for Navy, 49 for Air Force, bringing the total to 433 and representing 3.28%. The verdict NOW is the conscience of the nation.

Do Ghanaians have an Epileptic as CDS?

Preamble: Trust me. I am not a messenger of death but an Angel of Life and Light. I have a Third Eyes which enables me to see things which are hidden from ordinary mortals. Do not get me wrong. I am not elevating myself above ordinary citizens. But this is the Gospel truth. I have this rare gift and it comes from God and no other power or person. That’s the true me.

Sometimes my bluntness and openness have brought me close to the inevitable. Sometimes the zeal to elucidate on some issues result in a self debate. One part of me would want me to go ahead whist another part will warn me against the consequences of my treading at places where Angels at times fear to tread. But poor me, the “Yes” in me always wins for I cannot be hushed. I have to go all out and say it. This has brought me many troubles. But I am glad my Guardian Angel is always at the alert. He comes to my aid at just the material time that I need him. Always lucky, one might say.

A Worrying trend indeed! Today, I have chosen to speak on three things which are of paramount importance to the peace, security and unity of this country. The First one has to do with the health status of Current Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant General Blay. As we all know, the Ghana Armed Forces serve as the First line of both Defence and attack against external aggression. It is therefore expected that personnel in the Three Branches be in the best frame of health at all time. Thus greater care is taken to check the health care of its personnel during recruitment exercises.

It is therefore worrying to hear that not just an ordinary member but the Chief of Defence Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Blay is suffering from a disease which it had manifested itself during recruitment would have prevented him from being enlisted. 

A person’s health status is not a subject for public consumption or discussion. At the same time it must be pointed out that as a public officer his records including that of his health become public property. A person grows older, his/her health also deteriorates. Certain types of disease or ailments are hereditary in nature and we should not make much fuss about them. But be as it might be, an ailment such as Epilepsy is not a subject to be toyed with. Amongst some ethnic groups in the country, epilepsy like leprosy is a taboo and ought not to be mentioned. 

Thus it raises a lot of concern to hear that the Head of the Ghana Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Blay is epileptic. What has aggravated the situation is the fact that the CDS is a serving military officer. If he was retired before being appointed Chief of Defence Staff, one would not have expressed much worry.

But for a serving military officer of the rank of Lieutenant General and Chief of Defence Staff of the entire country’s Armed Forces to suffer from such a disease and still maintain his position as CDS is what beats my understanding.

Do the authorities want to tell us that at the time of his appointment as CDS, they had no idea that their man was suffering from such ailment? Let us even concede the fact that the symptoms manifested themselves long after his appointment. What have they done about it? What would happen if the disease gets hold of our number One Military Officer during official parades and durbars?

The ailment first manifested itself while the CDS was on official assignment in Lebanon. Since then, he has been making intermittent visits to Lebanon for treatment at the expense of the State. On his last trip to Lebanon, he was accompanied by both his wife and his Aide de Camp. They all drew per diem allowance from State coffers. But the funny thing about the whole saga is that some soldiers who are genuinely entitled to per diem are hardly given. At best officialdom or bureaucracy delays the payment to these legitimate officers, some of whom have died from frustration. Those who eventually get the money are given pittance of peanuts.

Attempts to push the CDS aside:  Whichever way one looks at the whole saga, it appears the end is drawing closer for Lieutenant General Peter Augustine Blay. President John Dramani Mahama is rooting for Air Vice Marshall Samson Oje to become the next Chief of Defence Staff should Ghanaians make the unexpected mistake of voting for the President and his Nefarious Destructive Cancer on December7, 2012.

 We have been there before: I know that the powers that be will deny that the CDS is suffering from epilepsy just as they denied that the former President John Evans Atta Mills was seriously ill. Why deny the truth. But as I have always said, sickness is like pregnancy which cannot be hidden for long. The ailment will surely manifest itself on the top military officer. What is more disgraceful than the high ranking military officer falling in a swoon and exhibiting the traits of the disease in full view of the public?

Truth is bitter. But the question is this: Is CDS Blay epileptic?

More posers for President Mahama: My second pose has to deal with the death of Former President John Evans Ata Mills. Ghanaians have raised a lot of searching questions for President John Mahama to provide answers to but he has cleverly parried those questions away with just a mere wave of his hands, and is going about his “duty” as if all was well. But all is not well. There are many searching questions waiting for answers from the current President, and the earlier he answers those questions to the best of his knowledge, the better it would be for him.

My question to all Ghanaians is this: Should those whose hands are tainted with the blood of the former President be allowed to go scot free? I sincerely think and feel they should not. When are going to get answers to the issues raised?

Let me once again reiterate the fact that the 37 Military Hospital was not informed officially before the former President’s body was sent there. Secondly, he was brought there DOA (Dead on Arrival). Also both the Minister of Defence and the CDS were not informed of the death of the former President. The CDS heard of the death though the grapevine; he was the person who personally pushed the “trolley” that contained the body of the late President.

The Commander of the Hospital even worsened the case when he chose to defend the indefensible by stating the two pediatricians accompanied the ambulance that took the body of the late President to 37 Military Hospital. Let him produce the dispatch book that accompanied the so called ambulance to the hospital. Again let him give the names of those “usurpers” and “criminal bay doctors” who prescribed children drugs to the late President. They should be arrested and prosecuted to dabbling into an area which was completely at variance with the course they had studied.

The review of John Mahama’s security details on Monday, 23^rd July, 2012: Again, let me tell you of something which might interest you and awaken your conscience to the fact that perhaps the President and his men have chosen not to tell us the truth about the death of the former President. On Monday, 23^rd July, 2012, between 6.30pm and 7.00pm, (the day before the official day given as the death of the former president) the security details of the then Vice President John Mahama was revised. On that day at such time, two armoured vehicles were sent down from Burma Camp to guide John Mahama’s residence. The armoured vehicles arrived by way of Soul Clinic Road near the Gotte Institute.

The then Vice President John Mahama has lived at his residence in Cantonment for nearly Four Years and not once was his security details revised as it happened on Monday, 23^rd July, 2012. Why was it changed a day before the day given as the death of the former President. It can only mean one of two things. One, either the former President was dead at that time. Secondly, it could be the former President had been poisoned and by morning it would have taken its toll on our late President. 

Something strange: There is another observation worth mentioning. On Saturday, 21^st July, 2012, a birthday party was organized for the late President. People believe it was at the birthday bash that the “old man” was done in by the conspirators who happen to belong to his own contraption. Doesn’t it baffle you that it was on that particular day that Nii Lante Vanderpuye, (the okro mouth thug at the Castle who told us the late President wore a juju ring) chose to launch his official campaign in his bid to snatch the “Odododiodoo constituency’s seat? Doesn’t it seem odd that this political thug who claimed to be the late President’s right hand man would choose that Saturday of all days to launch his official campaign? The answer is simple! It would have given him an alibi if the former President’s death was traced to poisoning. These are mere speculations but they are not impossible.

John Mahama’s First coup d’état was against Former President Mills: Another revelation is that when the then Vice President returned from his trip from the United States after he had launched his book “My First Coup against Atta Mills”, he never met the late President before the death of the former when though both of them have their offices in the Castle. The former President also lived there. So what happened? It was because the late President had heard of the nefarious attempts by his Deputy to use nefarious means to take over the Presidency from him. Current President John Mahama, we are told had buried a live cow at the Castle and aides of the former President had relayed the information to their boss. The late President had confronted John Mahama on the phone. The latter had said it was mere rumour and that he should get well first for they would discuss it after his arrival in the country, but it never happened. Why? It was because John Mahama felt ashamed to come face to face with his mentor, the late President. It smacked of ingratitude on the part of John Mahama, just like Brutus stabbed Caesar last at the Capitol.

Again President Mills was said to have confided in some close friends of his that “they want to kill me”

President John Dramani Mahama has told Ghanaians a lot of lies about how the late President died. He is not a man of integrity. He says he is prepared to clear himself of any allegation of corruption against him. Will he also subject himself before any probe or committee to ascertain his involvement or innocence in the untimely demise of his former boss? The only way President John Mahama could douse the flame surrounding the mysterious death of his predecessor is to submit himself to the court of the people. I am saying it on authority that President John Mahama knows more than he has told Ghanaians about the death of the former President. My Third Eye has revealed that something sinister happened in the mysterious death of Former President John Atta Mills and I will continue to ask probing questions until I get answers to the posers.

A military man as Head of Ghana Fire Service? The appointment of Brigadier General John Bosco as Chief Fire Officer does not augur well for the smooth running of the Fire Service in the country. Why, do the Appointing Authorities want to tell us there are no qualified personnel in the Service to be appointed to head the Ghana Fire Service? Isn’t this an insult to the reputation of officers and other ranks in the Service? And to add insult to injury, Brigadier General John Bosco has introduced an Agenda of recruiting personnel for the Service from mostly his Area.

President Mahama’s intimate relationship with Albin Bagbin’s former Secretary: Rumours are spreading like a wild bush fire to the effect that one Mawusi Dziransa, a former Secretary to Alan Bagbin during the period the latter served as Minority and later Majority Leader in Parliament is a concubine to President John Mahama. The same rumours have it that President John Mahama has bought her a house at Roman Ridge and that she is the lady in the video circulating all over the country purporting to be the President bonking  the ‘unknown lady’. This same Mawusi Dziransa is said to have fought with another lady who works at Parliament House warning the second lady to leave her John Mahama alone for her (Mawusi Dziransa) and that she was ‘pulled out’ from Parliament House to become a Personal Secretary at the office of John Mahama when the later became Vice President. How true the rumours are, I cannot say. But the onus lies with the President to come clean of these allegations.

The Publisher sometime ago published a story in which it stated that John Mahama had bought a house for his “partner in crime”. John invited the paper’s Editors for a discussion over the issue, but I cannot say whether the two Editors honoured the invitation or not. What does the President have to say about these allegations? 

More Rumours: Rumours again have it that President John Dramani Mahama is pushing for one Alhassan a Deputy Inspector General of Police to become the substantive IGP should Ghanaians once again make the unfortunate decision to vote back to power the Boko Haram Jihadists, the Chemical Alis, the Peter Rabbits, the Don Quixote’s, the Greedy Bastards, the Babies with Wild Teeth and the Old Evil Dwarfs. 

Epilogue: It is against this background and to hinder the actualization of this dangerous dream of the President and his acolytes that I have made it my cardinal principle to do everything within my power to bring to the notice of Ghanaians the evil agenda the Nefarious Destructive Cancer has for the Nation. And it is to its attainment that my efforts will be concentrated, be the journey long or short. I am pursuing this agenda of “Stop NDC now” as if my entire depended on it. The death of the former President should not be washed away just like that. To this end, I entreat all Ghanaians within and outside the NDC’s contraption to throw their weight behind this crusade to expose the “murderers” of the former President. We can only arrive at the Heart of the Matter and know how the late President was “done in” if we are able to kick out the NDC from power.

Would you join me in this crusade?    

                                  

Countri People, I troway salute. I Shall surely Return.

Daniel Danquah Damptey (damptey_daniel@yahoo.com) (danieldanquah_damptey@yahoo.com) (0243715297).