We invited police to dig up our altar, says church council

The elders council of Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Promised Land, Akure, has disclosed that the church wrote a petition to the Inspector General of Police, to exhume its altar and investigate its General Overseer, Prophet Oluwagbenga Akinbiyi.

This is contrary to rumours that police invaded the church last week Tuesday to dig up the altar after an allegation by an expelled evangelist, Abiodun John, who alleged that the presiding pastor planted some charms on the altar.

Meanwhile, investigations by the police revealed that Abiodun had cloned himself as one Fausat Awelewa to harass the prophet on social media and further alleged that he, alongside the prophet, dug 16 rigs to plant charm on the altar.

Addressing newsmen in Akure yesterday, Barr. Abayomi Ojo, who served as spokesman of the council, noted that all the allegations against the church and pastors were untrue. Ojo, however, attributed the allegations to some influential and disgruntled members that left the church recently, vowing to pull down the church and the General Overseer.

“We wrote the Inspector General of Police, who instructed the Commissioner of Police to investigate the allegations against the church. Several attempts were made to dissuade us from going on with the digging of the altar. But we insisted that it must be dug up so as to get to the root of the matter because we had established that while laying the foundation of this church and altar about 12 years ago, the pastor was out of the country.”

The church council revealed further that nothing was found after the altar was dug in the presence of the police, church members and representatives of the claimant, Abiodun.

One of the church elders, Pastor Emmanuel Ajidahun, recounted that the former evangelist was first demoted by the disciplinary committee after he was found guilty of impregnating a housemaid of one of the church members.

“We put him under rehabilitation and when we realized he had shown enough penitence, we transferred him to head one of our branches in Ondo town but we got reports of several allegations against him and when found guilty, he was expelled from the church.”

Ajidahun, wielding the documents gathered from the suspect, affirmed that preliminary investigations proved that John was being sponsored by former members to blackmail the church.

However, John refuted all allegations against him by the church council, saying: “All they said was total falsehood and misleading, I will not talk for now over the matter.”

The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Femi Joseph, confirmed the development and noted that the policemen went to the church as part of the ongoing investigation into the matter.

“There are some allegations against the pastor of the church, but we can’t disclose the allegation now until after our investigation. So what our men did in the church was part of the ongoing investigation,” Joseph said.