Nigeria’s wealthiest pastor, David Oyedepo, returned to the scene of the crime last year when, speaking to a full church assembly, he recalled walloping a young girl in the face, knocking her backwards, as she knelt before thousands of church members, where people kneel to be saved.
The ringing slap could be heard easily on the video of that service but no copy was available until a source just provided it to SaharaReporters.
The incident took place in 2009 and it was recalled by Pastor Oyedepo in 2010 at his Winners Chapel, in Otta, Ogun state, Southwest Nigeria. “I slapped a witch here last year,” Oyedepo declared, stressing each word, on the video. “She came back in February to apologize. She begged me to please forgive her.” He added the warning, “Starting today, the things harassing you, you will start harassing them.”
Thanks to YouTube and Oyedepo’s tradition of videotaping his sermons, the slap and the recall of the slap are now being seen by thousands.
The girl on her knees appeared to be a suffering teenager in a simple dress whose soft voice cracked as she answered the pastor’s insistent questions. She had been first on a line of teenagers apparently ushered in to confess their sins. Pastor lost his composure when the teen from Imo state, pressured to say she was a witch, claimed instead to be a "witch for Jesus". The words had barely left her mouth when she was hit hard by the pastor’s open hand.
A now furious Oyedepo demanded confessions from the other teenagers as church members roared their approval. While the cruel show was going on, more victims were brought forth by church ushers. It could be surmised that the group of teenagers on bended knees had been recruited for this punishment without full disclosure.
Oyedepo’s actions, bordering on criminal assault, have prompted a variety of citizen responses and action on social media platforms. A petition signing campaign has been launched, calling for the prosecution of the flamboyant pastor. Another Nigerian website, Nigerianvillagesquare.com named Pastor Oyedepo to its naming and shaming part- “NVS Hall Of Shame”- a platform for mobilizing scorn against unscrupulous Nigerian public officials and powerful private individuals.
SaharaReporters posted the Youtube video, which has now gone viral and become a source of international anger against the man known as “Papa” by members of his large church.
Oyedepo is the general overseer of the Nigerian-based Winners Chapel which is also known as “Living Faith Church”. A chapter In the U.S. is based in Hempstead, Long Island, according to their website. Efforts to speak with a representative were unsuccessful at press time.
Another group last night stated that a strong letter of complaint is already being worked on to request the US State Department to revoke Pastor Oyedepo’s visa to the US. A group in the UK also promised to find a creative way to get the UK government to prosecute Mr. Oyedepo for child abuse and battery if he sets foot on UK soil.
Nigerian flamboyant pastors are some of the richest on the African continent; Pastor Oyedepo is considered the richest Pastor in Nigeria according to a Forbes magazine article. He owns four jets, a super expensive network of schools and various investments across the African continent.
He is highly connected and politically powerful. In May 2011 when Nigerians were confronted with the antics of the clique that hid behind the terminal illness of Nigeria’s president, Umaru Yar’adua, Pastor Oyedepo was part of a delegation corralled to visit a dying Yar’adua to provide the Nigerian people the impression that Yar'adua was “alive and recovering" although Mr. Oyedepo and his companions saw a bleary Yar’adua, he never said a word in public to reveal what he saw. Yar'adua died a few days later.
