Apostle Johnson Suleman, the General Overseer of Omega Fire Ministries, has reportedly expelled one of his branch pastors for allegedly participating in the controversial MMM Ponzi scheme.
It was learned that in a statement signed by the Head of Administration in the church, Pastor David Apelorioye, the affected Pastor, Joseph Aiyedun, was in charge of one the OFM branches in Aba, Abia State.
The pastor, it was further gathered, had brought the name of the church into disrepute for participating in the scheme using the church’s name, something Apostle Suleman frowned at, especially after he had condemned the scheme as being demonic in a sermon in November 2016, shortly before the account of the Ponzi scheme was frozen in Nigeria.
The statement from the church reads in part:
"The management of Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide is using this medium to react to news making the rounds on the social media regarding one of its pastors who used the ministry's name to register for the MMM scheme.
Ordinarily, the church would not have reacted to the story because of falsehoods being published regularly by some blogs and news websites whose credibility are questionable.
But after a thorough investigation by the church authority, it was established that one of our branch pastors in Aba, Pastor Joseph Aiyedun, indeed participated in the scheme."
The statement added that Pastor Aiyedun was sacked after a thorough investigation after it was discovered that he used the name of the church to register for the scheme, thereby denting the ministry's image in the public eye.
Insiders believe that Pastor Aiyedun would not have been sacked if he had registered for the scheme in his personal capacity but because he used the ministry's name for the scheme, he was asked to go.
The statement continued:
"The church authority decided to expel Pastor Aiyedun not because he registered for the Ponzi scheme, but because he involved the ministry's name in the satanic adventure.
And we discovered that he was able to use the ministry's name because he had access to the account of his branch which itself is against the church's guidelines and a fraud likely to have been carried out in connivance with the branch's account department.
We are still investigating further to unravel the whole activities."
Pastor Aiyedun, according to a church source, was not however sent away empty handed as the magnanimous Apostle Suleman approved that he be paid one year salary so as to be able to take care of his family till he can get himself sorted out.
Courtesy of Pulse.ng
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