A self-professed prophet, simply identified as Oladele, whose white-garment church is at Oke Ira, in Ogba area of Lagos State, has been arrested by the Police at the Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi for allegedly defrauding a businesswoman of N70m, a duplex, two five-bedroom bungalows, a Lexus and a Toyota Highlander, 2014 model under the pretence of curing her of fibroids.
The woman’s trouble started sometime in 2007 after she was told by a medical doctor that her womb would have to be removed to heal her of fibroids, the Punch reports.
She was said to have turned down the doctor’s advice and resorted to a desperate search for an alternative solution, during which she was introduced to the so-called prophet.
According to the report when the woman, who was 43 years old at the time, met Oladele, 45, she had been battling with the disorder for 14 years, causing her to bleed from her private parts.
The prophet, it is gathered, promised to make the fibrous tissue disappear and gave her some concoctions after collecting N98,000 for his service. The bleeding was said to have stopped.
However, the relief was short-lived as the bleeding reoccurred two weeks after and she went back to the prophet.
That was when Oladele took advantage of her and started coming up with all kind of gimmicks to extort money from the woman, including a claim that her husband was after her life and those of her three children, it was said.
A senior police officer at the SFU said, “The woman is from a prominent family in Lagos State and she is a businesswoman. She had fibroids for 14 years and was driven from pillars to posts, looking for healing. Eventually in 2007, she met a woman who introduced her to the prophet.
“The prophet told her that her husband was the cause of the heavy blood flowed. He said the husband wanted to kill her and that as long as the blood flows, the husband would continue to make more money. He said the husband had to be eliminated for her to live well. He also told her to bring her children – two females and a male – for spiritual cleansing, saying their lives were also in danger.
“He gave the children some concoctions. He lived in the woman’s house in Ogba with her children whenever the husband was not around. By this time, he had taken control of the woman and her children. At a point, he told the woman to build a five-bedroomed duplex for him at Ijoko (Ogun State), which she did within three months. She also purchased a Toyota Highlander, 2014 model, and a Lexus GX470, 2013 model, for him.”
It was learnt that the woman’s son ran mad a few years ago after taking some herb from the prophet and Oladele took the boy to his town in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, where he was healed.
“He told the woman that she must build two five bed-roomed bungalows for him in Ado Ekiti so that her son madness would not return. After she built the houses, he told the woman to stop having sex with her husband if she wanted to live long.
“The woman made several transfers into his three bank accounts. We have been able to get records of the transfers to one of his banks which ran into over N70m,” the source added.
However, according to the newspapeer luck ran out on the prophet sometime in March when it dawned on one of the woman’s children, a lawyer, that the family was being defrauded after he allegedly collected another millions of naira from her for “spiritual cleansing”.
Another investigator at the SFU said, “The lawyer informed their father and the case was reported to the police. The prophet was arrested in Ado Ekiti, where he had gone to obtain a chieftaincy title.”
An official of the SFU, SP Ngozi Braide, who spoke on the incident on behalf of the unit’s Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Lamorde, said the suspect has confessed to the fraud.
She said, “We have been able to trace about N70m to his bank account. In his statement, he said he healed the woman of the fibroids.”
In the prophet’s statement to the police, he said the houses and the two vehicles were gifts the woman gave him. He said he did not use charms on her and her children.
Oladele also told investigators that he gave some money to the woman that introduced the victim to her.
A manhunt for the accomplice has been launched, Braide said. She disclosed that the prophet had been granted administrative bail and would be charged to court after the completion of investigation.
“We urge members of the public to be wary of people who devise various means of defrauding them of their hard-earned money. Be careful about the kind of people you seek help from,” Braide added.
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