THE DRAMA OF THE CENTURY

Pastor Mathew Olakunle

Why Some Pastors Are Criminals.

Some time ago, a young married woman named Mrs. Omotola Akerele, alleged that one Pastor Mathew Olakunle, had a sexual intercourse with her.  The incident, according to her, took place at the pastor’s church when she was undergoing spiritual healing.

Pastor Olakunle, according to the story published in the Punch newspapers, among other online sources, was the head of the Christ Apostolic Church, Oke Itura, in Iju town.  Iju town, where Mrs. Akerele, also hailed from, is located in the Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State.

Mrs. Akerele narrated her ordeal on a radio programme on Adaba FM based in Akure, the capital of Ondo State in Nigeria.  According to her, the sexual intercourse she had with Pastor Olakunle resulted in a pregnancy, which she terminated without the knowledge of her husband.

Pastor and Choir Mistress Caught in the Open…

The drama started when the former developed a severe cough, which always made her urinate uncontrollably on her body.  As a result of that acute cough, her mother, a member of Pastor Olakunle’s church, decided to introduce her to the pastor.

“After praying for me,” disclosed Mrs. Akerele, “he said I needed a shaving stick and a handkerchief to perform the spiritual exercise, which I took to him.”

“The pastor told me that he wanted to use my pubic hair to perform some spiritual work that would solve my spiritual problem.

“On the night of the first day that we got there, he asked me to put off my clothes in the presence of my mother to pray for me in the mission house.

“After that day, he often asked me to come for deliverance and whenever I got there, he would ask me to remove my clothes and lie on a bed. While also naked, he would lie on me and start praying for me.

“On the seventh day, he shaved the hair on my private parts and armpits, and put the hair in the white handkerchief. After that, we had sexual intercourse.  After the intercourse, he asked me to go and bury the hair in the handkerchief.”

Pastor Onbert Mapfumo

Interestingly, the pastor admitted praying for women in the church naked.   According to him, “God answers the prayer of naked people faster.”

He denied ever having sexual intercourse with Omotola, let alone impregnating her.  He, however, admitted having a sexual relationship with her younger sister, Tope, twice and had prayed for their mother, Janet, too while naked.

He said, “On the third day of the spiritual programme, I shaved the hair of her private parts and I touched it (her private parts) with my sexual organ.   I told her to be using my organ to rub her private parts so that she could discharge.

“After that, I wiped the discharge of her private parts with the white handkerchief and I prayed for her, using Psalm 24.

“After the exercise, I asked her to go and bury the handkerchief in a bush. I asked her to call her husband to do it for her, but she refused. That was why I did it for her; I didn’t have sex with her.”

This story is not peculiar to Pastor Olakunle alone.   Similar stories abound everywhere, including the Internet.   Permit me to share with a few of them here with you.

Pastor Onbert Mapfumo, the founder of Grace Ministries, Harare, Zimbabwe, sexually assaulted Tilda Moyo, a married woman and a mother of four.  According to him, he wanted to pray and deliver her from the evil spirits causing her to have many children.

Former Pastor John Wilson of a Pentecostal church in Keighley, West Yorkshire, was jailed for 21 years.  He was said to have sexually assaulted six female members of his congregation for over 26 years, between 1984 and 2010.

Prophet Femi Oseni “Deliverying” a Member of His Church

Prophet Femi Oseni as seen “delivering” a member of his church above, was exposed by his wife, Doris, who was an Evangelist in his church.  His wife made the disclosure in a divorce suit she filed before a Customary Court in Ondo town, Ondo State.

His wife said she caught him with other women several times within their 12 years of marriage.  She complained that the last straw that broke the Camel’s back was when she caught him having sex with another woman on the floor of the church office.

Pastor John Wilson

ANOTHER VERSION OF THE PASTORS’ STORY

A few years ago, I met a woman of God in the office of one my acquaintance’s in Lagos.  She was invited there by my acquaintance to pray and bless his fax machine, which he used in swindling his unsuspecting victims, popularly called mugus in Nigeria.

A few minutes after her arrival, she opened her handbag and brought out a 500 ml bottle of red juice drink, which she said represented the blood of God.  She also brought out a sachet each of salt and granulated sugar.

She requested for a bowl from her host, into which she emptied the drink and some quantity of salt and sugar.  After stirring the sugar and salt solution together with a tablespoon, she and her host prayed over it.

At the end of their prayer, she drank some of it and offered some to her host to drink, too.  When she had completed her abracadabra job,  she was paid her fee of N100,000.00 (one hundred thousand naira).

That woman of God, according to a reliable source close to her, was very notorious in praying for advance-fee fraudsters, popularly known as 4-1-9ers, and other criminals.  She was said to have been in that business since 1996, from where she got the money she used in financing her church activities.

When the word ‘criminals’ is mentioned, especially in Nigeria, many people myopically associate it only with hoodlums, urchins, scallywags, armed robbers, brigands, burglars, drug pushers, advance fee fraudsters, and some politicians, whose second nature is stealing and killing, among others.

But from the two stories I’ve just shared with you, you would agree with me that some men and women of God are also criminals?  Won’t you?

The foregoing stories are just a few of their kind.  If you browse the Internet or visit physical libraries, you would find a lorry-load of similar stories, involving pastors from all over the world.

The question now is: What do you think makes them so?   Why do some pastors choose to become criminals?  Any clue?

THE WAY OUT OF THIS PASTORS’ MESS

From my own perspective, there’s one factor that is responsible for this.  It is Bible illiteracy.  There may be other factors, but this one rings a bell in my ears every minute of the day.

The Holy Bible, as we know it, was written with the inspiration of God – 2 Timothy 3:16.  Its purpose is to offer its readers and believers good knowledge of Jesus, the focal point of Christianity – John 5:39.

Unfortunately, a majority of Christians or believers of Jesus, have at least a copy of one of the versions of the Bible but do not study them.  While some have their Bibles permanently in the midst of clouds of dust on their bookshelves, others have theirs permanently under their pillows as a ‘weapon of security and protection.’

For example, out of the French people surveyed sometime ago by La Croix, Catholic newspaper, 42 percent of them have a Bible.  Out of this number, only 2 percent say that they read it almost every day.  Seventy-two percent say they “never read the Bible.”

This is the same thing the world over, according to other similar surveys.  The few people who study their Bibles do so only during church services and usually at the instruction of their pastors or Bible teachers.  The 2 percent of people who read their Bibles every day in different countries of the world are mainly pastors and other men and women of God.

The grave consequence of this lopsided attitude is that those church members who do not study their Bibles usually make themselves susceptible and easy prey to their pastors who do so.  Consequently, some predatory men and women of God capitalize on the failure of their members in studying their Bibles to hoodwink them.

THE WAY OUT OF THIS PASTORS’ MESS

If Mrs. Akerele, her sister, and her mother had a good knowledge of the Bible, do you think Pastor Olakunle would have messed them up the way he did?  If my 419 acquaintance knew his Bible, would the female pastor have done what she did for him?  That’s the point I’m trying to make here.

Was this not why the Bible warns: See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of the world rather than on Christ? – Colossians 2:8

So, as far as the things of God are concerned, accurate knowledge of the Bible is essential.  To believe in God and in His Son Jesus Christ without accurate knowledge of the Bible, through a constant study of it is like a house of cards.  A little puff is enough to make it fall.

Unless and until ordinary Christians or believers in Jesus take up the responsibility of studying the Bible, they would continue to be deceived and to be tricked by their criminally-minded pastors or their so-called men and women of God.

Story By Muyiwa Olu-Martins