Lagos state police have commenced an investigation into a case involving one Oladele, 45, a prophet at a church in Oke Ira, in the Ogba area of the state,Punch reports.
The police at the Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, said the prophet was being held for allegedly defrauding a businesswoman of N70m, a duplex, two five-bedroomed bungalows, a Lexus and a Toyota Highlander, 2014 model.
The woman’s ordeal began sometime in 2007 after she was told by a medical doctor that her
womb would have to be removed to heal her of fibroids.
She was said to have rejected the doctor’s advice and resorted to a desperate search for
an alternative solution, during which she was introduced to the prophet.
The woman, who was 43 years old at the time he met Oladele, had reportedly been battling
with the ailment for 14 years, which made her to bleed from her private parts.
It was gathered that the 45-year-old prophet promised to make the fibrous tissue disappear
and gave her some concoctions after collecting N98,000 for the service. The bleeding was said
to have stopped.
However, the victim’s excitement was short-
lived when the bleeding recurred two weeks after and she returned to the prophet.
It was said that Oladele subsequently started coming up with different gimmicks to extort
money from the woman, including a claim that her husband was after her life and those of her three children.
A senior police officer at the SFU said, “The woman is from a prominent family in Lagos State and she is a businesswoman. She had fibroids for 14 years and was driven from pillars to
posts, looking for healing. Eventually in 2007, she met a woman who introduced her to the prophet.
“The prophet told her that her husband was the cause of the heavy blood flowed. He said the husband wanted to
kill her and that as long as the blood flows, the husband would continue to make more money.
He said the husband
had to be eliminated for her to live well.
He also told her to bring her children –
two females and a male – for spiritual
cleansing, saying their lives were also in danger.“He gave the children some concoctions. He lived in the woman’s house in Ogba with her children
whenever the husband was not around.
By this time, he had taken control of the woman and her children. At a point, he
told the woman to build a five-
bedroomed duplex for him at Ijoko (Ogun State), which she did within three months. She also purchased a Toyota Highlander, 2014 model, and a Lexus
GX470, 2013 model, for him.”
It was learnt that the woman’s son ran mad a
few years ago after taking some herb from the
prophet. It was learnt that Oladele took the boy
to his town in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, where he
was healed.
“He told the woman that she must build
two five bed-roomed bungalows for him
in Ado Ekiti so that her son madness
would not return. After she built the
houses, he told the woman to stop
having sex with her husband if she
wanted to live long.
“The woman made several transfers into
his three bank accounts. We have been
able to get records of the transfers to
one of his banks which ran into over N70m,” the source added.
PUNCH Metro gathered that luck ran out on the prophet sometime in March when it dawned on
one of the woman’s children, a lawyer, that the family was being defrauded after he allegedly
collected another millions of naira from her for spiritual cleansing.
Another investigator at the SFU said, “The
lawyer informed their father and the case was
reported to the police. The prophet was
arrested in Ado Ekiti, where he had gone to
obtain a chieftaincy title.”
An official of the SFU, SP Ngozi Braide, who
spoke on the incident on behalf of the unit’s
Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Lamorde, said
the suspect confessed to the fraud.
She said,
“We have been able to trace about N70m
to his bank account. In his statement, he
said he healed the woman of the
fibroids.”
In the prophet’s statement to the police, he
said the houses and the two vehicles were gifts
the woman gave him. He said he did not use
charms on her and her children.
The man also told investigators that he gave
some money to the woman that introduced the victim to her.
Braide said the police had launched a manhunt for the accomplice, adding that the prophet had been granted administrative bail and would be
charged to court after the completion of investigation.
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