SPECIAL REPORT: Lagos landlady ejects church after refusing to pay rent for 6 years; condoms, charms, calabash, other fetish items ‘recovered’ from pastor’s office [PHOTOS/VIDEOS]

…pastor relocates church, denies knowledge of recovered fetish items

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The usual serene atmosphere at Akim Oluwo Street, Abaranje, Ikotun, Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State took different visuals on Tuesday, July 2 2024 when police operatives on order of the Ikeja High Court stormed Light of The Living Church to effect evacuation of the church from the premises over alleged accumulated rent default.

According to multiple eyewitnesses accounts, during bulldozing, several items including bones, calabash, horns, photographs of unidentified people, charms and other fetish items were recovered buried under the church pillars, altar and pastor’s office.

NewsClick Nigeria gathered that the embattled Founder/General Overseer of the church, Prophet Rotimi Ilesanmi had on several occasions turned down entreaties by the landlady, Mrs Amusan to pay up the rent which has now allegedly accumulated to the sixth year.

When all entreaties failed, the landlady dragged the pastor to some Human Rights advocacy group who made frantic efforts to invite the pastor for mutual settlement but he allegedly persistently declined the invitation. The landlady further sought assistance from the Area M Police Command and the traditional ruler (Baale) all yielding no results to get the pastor to pay the church rent or vacate the premises.

Findings by NewsClick Nigeria team upon an investigative call to the said area revealed that apart from Light of the Living Church, Akim Oluwo Street also boasts of two other churches all within trekkable distances to each other.

 

My tortuous journey to recovering my property – Landlady

The landlady recalled that an elderly man in a street adjacent hers brought Pastor Ilesanmi to her in 2011 that he (the pastor) needed land for church use for two years. She said the outright agreement she and the pastor signed was for two years. However, at the expiration of the two-year initial rent in 2014, she recalled giving the pastor a quit notice which he (the pastor) refused to collect from her.

“An elderly man from Bello Street brought him to me in 2011 that he needed a land for church use for just two years.  We both signed the two-year lease agreement and at the expiration of the rent in 2014, I gave him quit notice, but he didn’t collect it, so I gave it to the lawyer and he refused to leave the land.

Madam Amusa added that her husband who was abroad the whole time returned home in 2015 and begged that the pastor be given another two years to pay up his debt. However, it was when he (the pastor) didn’t still pay or leave the property after the expiration of her husband’s two-year plead for the pastor that she started exploring available options to evict the church from the land.

“In 2015, my husband came from overseas, pleaded on the pastor’s behalf that we give him another two years to either source for the rent or leave the property. However, in 2018 when that grace expired, he still hadn’t paid the rent nor vacated the land, so i took him to Human Rights but he persistently declined their polite call. After much persistence, they were only able to retrieve N80, 000:00 from him that year and since then (2018), he hasn’t paid a dime. I don’t even want the money again; all i now wanted was for him to vacate the land. I subsequently took the case to Area M Police station and later to the Baale of Abaranje. However, he never honours their calls and whenever he does; he will come with excuses of having a church programme going on somewhere which are all lies.

When all these also failed, I then took the case to court. It wasn’t long that we took the case to court that COVID-19 struck and nothing much was achieved. But around November 2022 when the court heard the case, it ruled that he (the pastor) and the church should vacate the land. He was told to leave in January of 2023. However, he also went to court to get stay of execution order which granted him more time on the property,” she explained to NewsClick Nigeria.

The landlady noted that she and her lawyer never backed down on the matter. She said victory finally came her way when on Thursday, June 25 the court gave immediate order of eviction of the church from the property.

“My lawyer had initially told me the case is 50/50 but I wasn’t ruffled. So it was a rainy day on June 25 when the court gave the verdict and it was in my favour. On July 2, armed policemen on the order of the court came and enforced the eviction owing to initial notices of eviction that the pastor did not comply with,” she said.

According to her, the eviction wasn’t as surprising as the fetish items discovered around the church premises. From pillars to altar to the two offices the pastor used (one was tiled and the other was a bare ground), there were fetish items scattered all around.

“You need to see what was discovered on the day of the eviction. I wasn’t allowed to witness the eviction as an elderly woman but my daughter was there and I told her to record. Items recovered include; 6 & 7 books of Moses, horn of cows, punctured pictures of unidentified people, olugbohun, herbalist clothes, cutlasses, condoms, concocted soaps that he sells for as much as N10,000 to N30,000, local sponges, alligator pepper, and bones buried in each pillar of the church.”

Speaking on her regrets leasing out the land to the pastor she said: “I regretted it and why I even agreed to lease the land to him was the church he mentioned. I never knew he was fake. Some people who came to the place looking for miracles landed at the hospital, others even died, marriages broken and we can’t even count the cases of extortion. His dad was an herbalist and I learnt that when the man died he hurriedly went there to acquire his powers which I think he uses to deceive people.”

 

His members/invitees mess up our streets during their programs – Trader

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Mrs Faith runs a provision store adjacent the church building. According to her, people troop in to the church from different places in their numbers seeking miracles.

“I can’t really if the church is a good or bad and like I’ll always tell people, God knows those who are serving Him but my observation is that people come from far and near distances for miracles. However, I can’t tell if the miracles are real or fake. More so, the pastor runs adverts on radio and that even attracts more people.

On how residents feel after the eviction, she said: “Actually, I don’t live in the street, I only have a shop here but I know residents are happy over the eviction. Many of them said the noise pollution especially when they have marathon vigil program is beyond endurable. Aside that, they said members usually mess up the street with urine and even faeces.

Speaking on the eviction and what was discovered, she said: “I didn’t open shop on the day of eviction but was around when they were doing some demolitions and I saw them bringing out some fetish things like pots and other funny items not fit to be found in the House of God.

“Like I said, the situation has made me understand more that only God knows who are His, because the man claims to be serving God, he even constructed an image of Jesus inside the church but those things brought out of the church showed the opposite and testimonial that he is into something else,” she said.

 

He is a deceiver, not a man of God – Mr Adesina, landlord on Akim Oluwo street

A landlord on the street told NewsClick Nigeria that residents in the street are happy about the the pastor’s eviction. According to him, the pastor is a deceiver who explores peoples’ ignorance for evil. ”He is a terrible man. He is not a man of God as he’s proclaiming and wants people to believe. He has been running the church in this street for many years and has not paid rent for over six years now. The landlady took he took court and won. He appealed the judgement but will never appear in court. That was why the court gave judgment in absentia. They sent armed policemen to come and evict his church from the land. They removed all his property. By the time they were searching and bringing out the properties, a lot of things were seen in his office. Like horn, iwo (what Yorubas calls afose). The local pots with fetish items in it were much. Over 13 cutlasses were recovered. One of the cutlasses was discovered under the altar.”

Speaking further, he said: The pastor kept two offices. One looked decent where he receives visitors and another was uncemented, bare ground. That was where he kept all those fetish items. Even condoms littered the office. I pray God opens the eyes of his members to know the kind of person they call pastor.

Mr Adesina said the pastor’s eviction from the street has brought a new dawn of hope as people can now sleep without disturbances. “We’re enjoying it. They make a lot of noise. At times, when they close around 2 – 3am blowing sirens. People can’t sleep. But we’re enjoying the eviction. We are happy now. Everybody in the street are happy. The man is away. We are now at peace. We can now sleep.”

 

I never believed till I saw it with my eyes – Baba Daniel, participated in bulldozing the church 

Sharing his experience with NewsClick Nigeria reporter, he said: “Things are happening my brother. I’ve been hearing some funny things about this church but didn’t believe till I was called to help in dismantling the church properly after the policemen left. From entrance to altar, everywhere was fetish. And people can never know because the fetish things are hidden. If not for the evacuation exercise, I won’t have know myself.”

Continuing, he said: “We evacuated local pots, calabash, horns with thread, pictures, bones of yet to be ascertained species, just name it. It was an unbelievable sight to behold. The landlady will give you these pictures and videos if you need them.”

 

I am a man of God, those defaming me will pay – Prophet Ilesanmi

When NewsClick Nigeria reporter reached out to the prophet who initially refused speaking on the subject matter, he alleged that the landlady and residents conspired against him.

“You’re a journalist and I won’t like you to put yourself into trouble. Whatever they must have told you are all lies. I am a prophet, if you listen to radio program very well, you will hear me speak or preach. It is not unusual to see people gathering and spreading lies against a good prophet. I have said I won’t speak on this issue again. Or did I abuse anyone? Let’s move on. I’m not interested, the land belongs to them, I didn’t say I am the owner, if you rent an apartment, one day you will leave. You said she told you that we’re owing for 6 years, she has gone to the court, and she had received the judgment and she has done her worst and I am not interested in anything,” he said.

The prophet explained that he will at the appropriate file fresh legal proceedings against the landlady and anybody found defaming his character.

“The case is not ended yet, they folded their hand and thought it is over, it is not over, I pended the matter just for me to go forward, with my people. The case hasn’t ended yet, the case is hot and serious.

I have told you I won’t tell you anything about the court case, you’re a journalist. I have given you expo already, we are going back to the court, we are still in the court they might not know and me trying to involve journalist is me fighting for myself.”

On the court judgement and the alleged fetish things discovered in the church, he said:

“What they said they saw are materials that we used for program. I have church not only in Abaranje, but Oko-Afo along Badagry and other places. For mothers, we do asked them to bring shawl and other materials to pray for their children. For those building house that remained stagnant, we asked them to bring corn and cassava, we’ll put it inside bottle and pray with it and God has been doing wonders with those things.  None of those fetish things were found in my office or church environment.

“My landlady and two other wicked person in that area, as wicked as they are, if you don’t know let me tell you, what they’re waiting for they believe that they should bust my office, in my absence, if they see anything that is against the law of Nigeria, you won’t be talking to me. They will go to area M Police Station, it’s like you don’t know human beings. If they see human part, or goat, or charm like they claim, they will take it to police station.  The court minuted all what they saw in my church, all the things they brought out were written down. They singed and my P.A signed too. I am also a lawyer. My elder brother was immediate past Chief Judge of Ekiti State. So I know the implications of all these things,” he said.

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