The General Overseer of Sufficient Grace Church, Pastor Okechukwu Joseph, has been arrested by the Operatives of State Intelligence Bureau (SIB), Lagos State Police Command for allegedly defrauding members of his church of huge sums of money.
The Pastor borrowed money from his church members, pretending it was needed for his car repair among other projects, while promising to pay back soonest since he was expecting cash from undisclosed sources.
However, when those he borrowed from confronted him to collect their money, he came up with excuses and among his victims are women who do daily contribution (ajo) business.
According to The Nation, he had been making empty promises of paying back for about eight years.
Explaining his involvement Joseph said:
"I am married with two children. I am from Okwe Oboro, Umuahia, Abia State. I know the complainant Miss Bridget Nwankwo as a member of my church. I had no misunderstanding with her.
What really happened is that I collected N308,000 from her to do some reconstruction work in my church where we were before I relocated, due to circumstances beyond my control.
I paid her N100,000. I was not able to pay the remaining N208,000, because money was not coming to me as before. She later reported me to SIB. The church I am pastoring is a growing church.
If you look at my body physique you will think that I have money. I had problems and that was why I had no money to pay her. I had a very serious financial problem."
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