The Pastorpreneur Bishop Oyedepo and Wife
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 a.k.a The Pastorpreneur , who has an estimated £93 million fortune, a
fleet of private jets and a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
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.’
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 The Pastorpreneur’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’
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. 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 The Pastorpreneur’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’.
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.
