•After Spending 5 Months In Prison
•How His Travails Made Him More Popular
Popular Lagos Prophet, Israel Oladele of Genesis Global Church, has heaved a sigh of relief. He has been granted a N2 million bail pending the determination of the appeal of his case. He is also to provide 2 sureties in like sum. This was the ruling last Thursday by the Appeal Court which granted him bail application. Because the ruling came late on Thursday, Genesis Pastor couldn’t perfect his release papers on time, mores so last Friday was a Public holiday, so also Monday. We hear his release will be perfected this week Tuesday which is the first working day after the Easter break. But Technically, he has been granted Bail, revealed one of his lawyers. “What we have done is to apply for Bail, pending Appeal.
He has been in prison for the past 5 months after he was found guilty of allegedly defrauding a lady who has been described as his one-time lover, of N5 million.
A lot has happened since his conviction. His church activities have continued unabated and all his followers on social media have remained active. A few weeks back, Barrister Monday Ubani, a radical Lagos Lawyer had a Press Briefing on the matter. He titled it: The Issues Of Human Rights And The Story Of Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe Of Celestial Church Of Christ Genesis Global Parish.
According to him, “what attracted me to the gentleman Prophet is the stories I read about his spiritual and human efforts towards those who are in correctional custody in our Correctional Facility at Kirikiri, Apapa. The story out there are his efforts in winning more souls for Christ, donations of food and toiletries to the inmates which to us is the true exhibit of traits of true Christianity which is represented by love for God and humanity.”
“Of utmost excitement to me personally and our law firm is the issue of facilitating the release of some of the inmates that have been in detention awaiting trials for a good number of years. I am sure you aware of the story of one Azeez Ibrahim who regained his freedom recently at the instance of the prophet. The man narrated how he wrongly served 10 years and 6 months at Kirikiri Correctional Centre for wrong identification. He regained freedom as a result of the intervention of the man of God. The number we gathered who have regained freedom so far through the effort of the prophet and his church has risen to about 82 inmates.”
“We got interested in knowing this great apostle of God and we are interested in partnering with him to secure the lives of those that are being wasted in prison by our imperfect administration of criminal justice system. However, we got more than we bargained for. He told us the story of his sojourn to the correctional Centre at Apapa. We demanded a copy of his judgment that pronounced his conviction and sentence.”
“Sad at some of the events that led to his conviction. We are glad that the conviction is being challenged seriously by a very senior and competent lawyer based in Lagos. It is our conviction that justice shall be served at the Appellate jurisdiction. There are clearly yawning gaps in the entire story leading to his trial and conviction. We are worried that the exonerating report of the Alagbon Police Authority that was the last to investigate the whole incidence was never taken into consideration at the trial court. As said earlier, these and many more shall be strengthened in due course. We shall refrain from going into the facts of the case as the matter is presently subjudice. We promise to examine the legality of the trial and conviction whenever the appellate options are exhausted”.
“Concerning his conviction and sentence, Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe strongly disagrees and has appealed against his conviction-challenging the conclusion and position of the trial Court, and he is bewildered on how a matter which was earlier reported to the Police for a threat to life, metamorphosed all of a sudden into a case of stealing and obtaining money by false pretenses leading to his conviction and sentencing, a fundamental issue he has raised in his appeal. However, out of respect for the judicial process, and due to the fact that his appeal is still pending before the honorable Court of Appeal, we will, for now, leave details of his Ordeal, Trial and Conviction until a future time when his appeal must have been determined whether in his favor or otherwise”.
“Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe maintained his innocence as argued by his counsels during trials at the lower Court and continues to maintain his innocence even as he serves out the time in a federal correction facility, but as a human being, Prophet Ogundipe upon his conviction and sentencing, felt he was a victim of a miscarriage of justice, felt betrayed and dejected, but in a divine twist, he will later come to realize that, just as many great Prophets and famous world leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Olusegun Obasanjo, Rev. Martin Luther King etc. who were once jailed and sentenced for various offences in the past, he, Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe the Shepard of CCC Genesis Global is not exempted from prosecution and who knows whether he has been sent to prison on a divine account and for a divine purpose?
Which is why we applaud his zeal in getting those who are wrongly incarcerated justice through getting them out of the correctional centre using the judicial process”.
“Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe has spent much of his time interceding with various inmates and teaching them the word of God, listening to their various stories and the ordeals that landed them in a federal correction facility and counseling them in preparation to life outside prison. It is becoming clearer to the Prophet the salient reason the Almighty God ordained his journey to the correctional facility.
Upon being emotionally touched by the stories and the various ordeals of these inmates, the Prophet according to him started to care for the families of these inmates, by paying for their children’s school fees, providing them with feeding allowances, paying legal fees for those awaiting trials etc. an act of philanthropy that Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe was famously known for before his unfortunate incarceration and this led him to reach out through his aides and representatives to the law firm of Ubani and Co. expressing his desire to team up with our law firm in order to give comprehensive legal representations to various inmates whose stories and ordeals are quite compelling both at the trial and at the Appellant Courts.
In turn, the law firm of Ubani and Co. expressed its willingness to partner with Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe upon conclusion of terms and we are throwing these open to any meaningful Nigerians, individuals, or organizations regarding this noble cause or humanitarian activity of helping in getting justice to those who are languishing in various correctional centres across the country to come on board with us. We must endeavor to rescue our fellow brothers and sisters that are victims of our faulty system.
Please note that this is in furtherance to Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe’s intention of establishing his Prison Foundation, which is to be called Israel Oladele Prison Foundation which in part will be working in collaboration with Onyekachi Ubani’s Foundation to assist the less privileged who are denied justice through our skewed administration of criminal justice system. These two foundations with their mission and core value will focus on addressing social vices, counseling, youth empowerment and rendering of legal representation to indigents in need of legal services, especially those at the Correctional Centres across the country awaiting trials that are never held.
Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe continues to reiterate his undying commitment to the word of God and believes that “tears may endure through a long night, but joy comes in the morning”. We shall celebrate his freedom soon believing that he will learn all the lessons that God wants to pass to him through this temporary incarceration, which we call “restriction of physical movement but not spiritual empowerment”. #prophetisrealoladelegenesis Prophet Israel Oladele Ogundipe (unstopppable genesis #justiceforprophetGenesis.
How did the Genesis Pastor end up in Prison?
Recall that a Lagos State High Court last November sentenced the popular Prophet and Sheperd-In-Charge of CCC Global Genesis Church, Prophet Isreal Oladele Ogundipe to 2-year imprisonment for allegedly defrauding an America-based woman. The trial judge, Justice Olabisi Akinlade sentenced Prophet Oladele, after she found him guilty of 2 count charges out of the 7 he was charged with.
Justice Akinlade in a judgement that lasted for about 4 hours sentenced the defendant to a year imprisonment for counts 2 and 4. She however discharged him of counts 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 for lack of evidence against him.
Oladele was charged with 7 count charges bothering on fraud and obtaining money by false pretenses, preferred against him by the Lagos State Government sometimes in 2007. He was said to have defrauded one Mrs. Olaide William Oni to a sum of N11 million.
He had pleaded Not Guity to the charge when he was brought before the court.
Israel Ogundipe, the televangelist and Head of Genesis Parish of the Celestial Church of Christ, Alagbado, Lagos, was jailed for a year by an Ikeja High Court for stealing and unlawful conversion of a woman’s property.
Ogundipe, who was on trial since 2011, was charged with 7 counts of stealing, inducing delivery of money by false pretences, unlawful conversion of property and forgery.
Delivering the judgement then, Justice Olabisi Akinlade found Ogundipe guilty of 2 counts of stealing and unlawful conversion of property.
The judge found the cleric not guilty of 5 counts of stealing, inducing delivery of money by false pretences, giving false information to a public officer and forgery.
She sentenced the convict to a year in prison on each of the two counts he was found guilty.
The judge ordered that he should pay the complainant, a London-based architect, Mrs Oladele Williams-Oni, the sum of N11 million which he illegally obtained from her.
“Both sentences were to run concurrently and the defendant is to restitute the complainant the sum of N2.5 million in respect of count two (stealing) and N8.5 million in respect of count four (unlawful conversion of property not delivered),” the judge held.
According to Rotimi Odutola, lead prosecution counsel, Ogundipe committed the offences from Aug. 30, 2002, to Oct. 2004.
Odutola said that the convict fraudulently obtained N14 million and 12,000 pounds in tranches from the complainant during the period.
“Between Aug. 30, 2002, and December 2003, at No. 32, Bello St., Ladipo Estate, Sogunle, Lagos, he received two million naira from Williams-Oni to purchase an uncompleted building for her.
“ He fraudulently converted the money for his own use.
“Between March and December 2003 at Commint Bureau De Change, Broad Street, Lagos, he stole 12,000 British pounds from the complainant.
“The money was meant for the purchase of four plots of land for building a Mosque.
“He stole N8.5 million between October 2002 and March 2003 from Williams-Oni for purchase of landed property in Lagos,” Odutola had said.
The prosecution counsel added that on different days in 2002 and 2003, the convict received N2.6 million from the complainant by falsely representing to her that he was a man of God and that the money was to be used for his church.
“Ogundipe also allegedly forged a Nigerian international passport which carried his photo in the name Sanyaolu Babatunde Solomon at the Passport Office located at Oba Akinjobi St., Ikeja, Lagos,” the counsel said.
The offences contravened Sections 390(9), 419 and 467(1)(b) of the Criminal Code Law of Lagos, 2003.
(NAN).
