Pastor Scales Fence To Evade Arrest

Pastor Babatope Agboola of Christ Intercession Ministry shocked his members during a church service when he ran out of the church and climbed the church fence to escape police arrest.

The police had declared him wanted and the court issued a warrant of arrest of the pastor over his alleged involvement in fraud.

The action of the pastor threw the church members into confusion as they started running helter-skelter.

The 45-year old pastor was alleged to have defrauded an Edo woman.The pastor escaped to Ibadan and hide where he opened another branch of the church.

He was alleged to have duped Betty Ohehe on the false pretence of being her spiritual director. He told the woman to bring some amount of money which he would help her to establish business in Nigeria.

The woman obliged him and sent N445,000 which he said would yield some millions of profit in poultry farm business. But when he got the money in Lagos, he relocated to Ibadan where he was eventually arrested.

When the woman returned to Nigeria, she could not find him and she had to arrest his sister, Florence Ajijola, who introduced him to her.

He was traced to Ibadan by a team of policemen in Lagos.

Agbola was charged to Isolo Magistrate’s Court for fraud, an offence said to be contrary to section 419 of the Criminal Code.

When the matter came up at the court and charges were read to him, he pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The prosecutor, Adebayo Oladele, told the court presided over by Mrs. E. Kubenje that the accused should not be granted bail because he had been on the run since he committed the crime.

Oladele narrated to the court how he went to the pastor’s church at Ibadan and when he sighted them while he was delivering a sermon, he dropped the microphone, ran out of the church and climbed the church fence and escaped arrested.

But in response, the magistrate said the offence he committed was a bailable offence and he was entitled to bail.

He granted him bail in the sum of N300,000 with two sureties. The court ruled that the sureties must be civil servants on at least level 14.

The sureties must show evidence of payment of tax and their addresses must be verified by the court.

The matter has been adjourned till 30 June, 2010.

—Cyriacus Izuekwe