Modele Fatoyinbo defends husband against rape allegations

The wife of the Commonwealth of Zion Assembly global senior pastor, Modele Fatoyinbo, Sunday said the rape allegations against her husband were untrue.

“Not even as an unbeliever will my husband rape someone,” Mrs Fatoyinbo said during the church service broadcast and monitored from inside the Lagos branch of the church in Ikeja, Lagos.

But Biodun Fatoyinbo stopped his wife from talking further about the rape allegations.

Biodun Fatoyinbo was alleged to have raped Busola Dakolo, a celebrity photographer and wife of Nigerian singer Timi Dakolo, when she was a teenager.

Modele’s denial of the allegations is a re-echoing of her husband’s Friday statement.

“I have never in my life raped anybody even as an unbeliever and I am absolutely innocent of this,” Fatoyinbo said in a statement posted to his Instagram page on Friday.

However, the allegations have generated widespread condemnations, controversies and prompted protesters to storm the Abuja and Lagos premises of the church demanding the Fatoyinbo should vacate his position as the leader of the church.

But the presence of the armed policemen deterred the marchers from moving close to the church.

A protester told The Guardian that the protest was necessary to free and give other rape victims voice to speak up.

“This protest is not against COZA or the church of God, it is to give rape victims voice,” the protester said.

A right activist Segun Awosanya told The Guardian on Saturday that there were more than 30 alleged victims who will testify against the pastor.