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Unlike many other Pentecostal Churches, Living Faith has maintained a good distance from scandals and controversies big enough to threaten the foundation of the church

David Oyedepo, bishop of the Living Faith Church World Wide, popularly called Winners Chapel, has not been as controversial as other Pentecostal pastors in Nigeria. In the church’s 30 year history, controversy first reared its ugly head in October 2002, at the church’s branch in Kenya.

That year, members of the church in this East African nation were accused of links with the Mungiki sect which seeks to promote and preserve Kikuyu cultural traditions, especially female circumcision and facing Mount Kenya while praying. The Kikuyu believe the mountain is the seat of God. Also, members of the church were alleged to be in touch with anti-government forces to overthrow President Daniel Arap Moi.

But prominent Kenyans defended the church against the allegations. One of them was Ralia Odinga, leader of the opposition. He warned the government against a plot to tarnish Winners Chapel’s image in the country, describing it as one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing churches with branches in many African countries.

Two years later, another controversy blew open in Ghana, following the reorganisation of the headship of the branches of the church worldwide in 2004. George Adjemann, head of the Ghana branch of the church, reportedly resisted his transfer to Ibadan, after he had successfully planted the church in the former Gold Coast and money was rolling in. After protracted negotiations, the bishop was said to have offered the recalcitrant minister $100,000. He reportedly rejected the offer.

The Adjemann’s episode led to a massive reorganisation and transfer of key ministers. Non- graduate pastors were sacked. One of those affected in this exercise was Dayo Olutayo, head of Abuja diocese, who was moved to Port Harcourt. He rejected the posting. Olutayo consequently broke away and set up his own church adjacent Winners Chapel at Durumi, Abuja. He was said to have offered many of the sacked pastors sanctuary.

But the biggest controversy in the church today involved some pastors who were involved in auto-crashes while on official duties for the church. They were sacked as they are no longer useful to the church due to permanent incapacitation. For the past couple of years, the sacked pastors have been praying fervently that God should touch the heart of Bishop Oyedepo, their former employer, to pay them their entitlements.

Among such men are Akah Ikenna, 46; Ifeakachukwu Sunday and Dick Abiye, former pastors of Benin, Asaba and Port Harcourt branches, respectively. Ikenna went to court to compel Oyedepo to pay him his dues. The case is now before the Appeal Court, Ibadan.

Ikenna sustained injuries in an auto-crash on August 6, 2005, along the Lagos – Benin expressway during an official trip to Lagos. He has been on crutches in the past six years. Sunday and Abiye were wounded in auto-crashes too. The latter now lives at Omoku, near Port Harcourt, Rivers State. He claimed the church has abandoned him. Worse still, his wife has divorced him as she can no longer live with a man who has been rendered useless by an auto crash.  Because they could not afford litigation costs, Sunday and Abiye resigned to fate.

Sunday said he wrote Bishop Oyedepo on August 12, 2009, but believes the letters did not get to him. He, however, pleaded: “I solicit for your fatherly care. I have nowhere else to turn to but this organisation I once belonged to.”

The church, however, denied that it abandoned Ikenna. It said it treated him first on moral ground and then in demonstration of good Christian character. It denied sacking him while in the hospital but that it had the right to review its workers performances and release from service “any staff it feels his or her services are no longer needed.”

Oyedepo denied that they were neglected. “Not one of them was badly treated. In fact, I just withheld myself from pronouncing a curse on them. Even when you are not a member of the church, the church takes care of you. I left a standing order in this clinic, that anybody that sustains or had an accident on this Idi Iroko Road, whether he’s a believer or non believer, a Muslim, an animist, and they bring him to this clinic, put him on my charge. Not one of them has a cause with any moral backing, not one. That’s why the cases died down,” he said (see box).

He, however, added: “If there’s any case that’s serious to take to the court you go to the court and lawyers will take charge.”

He described the rift with Olutayo as the case of a prodigal son. “There’s nothing to it; if a prodigal son comes back home, you receive him. I didn’t reconcile with him, he reconciled with his father. He grew up with me, as a student. He messed up, and there’s always a way to return when you mess up. It’s a family affair.”

Oyedepo has been criticised for preaching prosperity. But he retorted: “Do you love poverty? If anybody wishes you long life and prosperity will you answer “no?” But I’m happier that they don’t say that I’m the poorest man in the world. If they say your father is the poorest man in the city, you won’t be happy. So, my reaction is simple: nobody’s money is lost, nobody has been said to be defrauded and nobody has been pressurised to do anything. You give according to what you have. Don’t give under any pressure. If Nigeria runs the kind of system we run, we will never know any poverty.”