Money Laundering Scandal

Pastor Chris Oyakhilome Goes Into Hiding
*EFCC Begin Man Hunt For Him

Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, the General Overseer of Christ Embassy Assembly is no doubt controversy prone. The handsome and fashionable man of God had been enmeshed in so many career threatening scandals before now, but all the scandals died naturally but not without leaving a sore on the Pastor’s pastoral credentials and a dent on the image of his ministry.
Apart from the local battle he had with some of his colleagues over his association with the General Overseer of the Synagogue Church of God, Prophet Temitope Joshua, another controversial figure which almost turned him into a recluse, Oyakhilome had also been mentioned in some international scandals, largely bothering on spiritual fraud.
Sometime back, the Nigerian preacher and healer Pastor Chris Oyakhilome was accused by a member of his own church in far away South Africa of staging miracle-healing sessions.
Some of his followers have been reported to have said that he has been hiring people to pretend to be sick and disabled and then “be healed” during his television shows and public prayer meetings. One of these reports quoted a man who did not want to be identified for security reasons as saying; “I was offered R10 000 to rehearse and pretend to be in a wheelchair three weeks before the all-night prayer called Night of Bliss at the Johannesburg Stadium.”
He was recruited by one of the pastors and told he would be paid if he helped to draw crowds. “The pastor told me that they were looking for people to work for the church.
He said that I was going to sit in a wheelchair and be wheeled around while pretending to be physically ill. I would then stand up and walk as soon as Pastor Chris stopped praying for me.” insisting that the people who are “healed” every time on stage are actually trained weeks before. “Even children who are healthy are whisked around in wheelchairs. Some use crutches. “Everyone is allocated a person who tells the congregation about your background, your specific illness and suffering. “The pastor then raises his hands and places them maybe on your legs if you cannot walk, and a few seconds later you get up and walk around the room,”. He said he called the church the day after their offer and turned them down.
“I just told myself that using the word of God to lie to desperate people is immoral, so I refused to take up their offer,” said the source. A woman who went to the all-night prayer service, said: “When he started healing people, I did not see him call anyone from the audience. The people that he ‘healed’ came from a certain section of the audience and it looked like he came with them especially for the event.
“I saw a lot of people in wheelchairs leaving the venue who had not been healed. It was very sad. The seriously ill, mostly disabled and in wheelchairs, went to the service in the hope of being healed by Pastor Chris’s powerful prayer. Another woman, Tshinanne Nemutudi, said she went to the all-night prayer service because she believed in Pastor Chris.
“I trust him the way I trust Jesus and God. ”She said she had problems with her ankle but Pastor Chris had healed her. “While he was praying, he said we should all touch our body parts that needed to be healed. He said that if we believed then we would be healed.”
Oyakhilome is a pastor, teacher, healing minister, television host and best-selling author whose career spans 25 years. He runs the church with his wife, Pastor Anita, who is the director of Christ Embassy’s international office and also preaches at the Christ Embassy churches in the United Kingdom.
Pastor Chris also hosts a religious programme on TV called Atmosphere for Miracles. One of the Pastors in the Randburg branch of the church brother Onyeka Liozo however came in stout defence of the General Overseer of the church declaring that what the source and the followers said “was rubbish”. “We have a healing school in Randburg. People ask and get healed. People must stop lying” Liozo said.
Pastor Chris is both controversial and mysterious.
If the aforementioned allegations are spiritual and can only be proven spiritually, the recent crisis which the man of God is currently enmeshed in is natural and his innocence or other wise could be proven by natural and relevant agencies if really the allegations are weighty enough to be followed to its logical end.
Indeed, this is one scandal that, according to reliable sources, has left Pastor Oyakhilome disappearing from his church even as he remains under the surveillance of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission. (EFFCC)
it was gathered that the pastor has gone underground apparently to avoid being ‘touched’ by the anti corruption agents over an allegation of money laundering.
Pastor Oyakhilome it was gathered is being investigated for the movement of monies totalling $35m from the pastor’s church account in Nigeria into various accounts abroad.
Sources within the anti-graft commission informed that the searchlight had been positioned on the preacher for sometime now, following revelations of his alleged involvement in money laundering through his church by The Egmont Group Of Financial Intelligence Units, EGFI, a group of financial intelligence units of which the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit being an arm of EFCC is a part.
Scoops on how money are being moved by Chris Oyakhilome’s church are constantly being released by the unit to the EFCC which recently mounted serious surveillance on the man of God which EFCC sources have disclosed has since gone underground apparently to prevent being invited by the anti-graft commission.
Even as the hunt for Pastor Oyakhilome is intensified, sources at the Oregun Lagos headquarter of the church informed that the General Overseer has not been seen around since the last week in November when the church rounded off with a big and successful programme, though they maintained that he is in the country and has only been unavoidably absent from the church.
A member of the church who also reacted to the fact finding mission of First Weekly when he volunteered that though the Pastor is within the country, he however affirmed that no one could see him at least for now, but he did not give reasons why the pastor has so decided to remain underground.