The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Monday arraigned one Pastor Afolabi Samuel, at the Ikeja Special Offences Court, Lagos for allegedly stealing $90,000 and N4.5m property of the Registered Trustees of the Living Faith Church, Canaan land, Ota, Ogun State.
Samuel, who was a church accountant, was brought before Justice Mojisola Dada.
The EFCC prosecutor, S. O. Daji, alleged that the defendant committed the alleged offences sometime on September 24 and December 31, 2018, in Lagos.
The commission said that Samuel and one Mrs Blessing Kolawole, a staff of Covenant University (now at large), converted the said sum to their own personal use.
A petition submitted to the EFCC by Chioma Okwuanyi & Co legal practitioners, said: “The duo started carrying out various acts of breach of trust and fraudulent commission of unconscionable economic crime and sabotage, by unlawfully diverting to their private use, the Church’s money in Pastor Samuel’s custody without the permission of the Church.
“The duo continued doing so until sometime in the month of December 2018 when they ran out of luck and all their secret acts of economic sabotage and financial crime of fraudulently tampering with the church’s money were revealed.
“When confronted by the church, Pastor Samuel, who lives around the church at Raji Oba, Lagos admitted committing the act and even voluntarily made a written confession where he detailed how they have been stealing from the church”.
Justice Dada remanded him at the Correctional Centre and adjourned the matter till December 10, 2019, for the hearing of bail application
