3. Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor
If there is a man-of-God who has meddled into Nigerian politics the most, then it must be Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the founding and senior pastor of Word of Life church.
Fondly called Papa Ayo, it is fabled that there is no Nigerian president who has not been to his church; he is highly political.
It is in that light that he earns his spot on this most controversial list. To a great extent he has been able to maintain his integrity even with mighty waves of scandal he has been involved in.
In 2014, a Nigerian-owned jet was found loaded with millions of dollars and that was in the process of procuring arms and a fighter helicopter for the Nigerian military and security agencies. The jet was linked to Papa Ayo; the matter stirred great uproar across the nation.
Pastor Ayo who was the then president of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), was in Fani Kayode’s words “vilified, maligned and treated with utmost disdain and contempt”. He was labeled an arms smuggler, a money launderer and worst of all a sponsor of the Boko Haram sect.
However, Pastor Oritsejafor who agreed that he was the owner of the plane pointed out that he had leased it out to a company on a long term basis. The company themselves were also said to have been subleasing the aircraft out to other companies for regular trips. He said he had no idea about who the company was subleasing too, nor knows where they are flying it to or who or what they were carrying in it in any of their operations.
The former national president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) was again in the eye of the storm, as he was accused of mismanaging the body’s funds while in office.
He said he left about N600m in the PFN’s coffers and almost completed a secretariat for the association during his tenure in office.
Further denying the allegations, Oritsejafor said he secured a land and built a 4-star hotel for CAN.
Following the various financial scandals in which he has been fingered, pastor Oritsejafor has come under severe criticism, with many asking him to resign, while some has aske him to stay away from the church if he wants to play politics.
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