Church General Overseer Lands In Jail Over Fake Prophecy, Fraud

A 55-year-old pastor and General Overseer, Nelson Foni, was arraigned at a Kafanchan Magistrates’ Court in Kaduna State on Friday for giving fake prophesy and duping a congregant, Edith Emmanuel, of N1.7 million.

The cleric faced a three-count charge of extortion, criminal breach of trust and cheating, punishable by the Kaduna State Penal Code Law, 2017.

State counsel, Alheri Daudu, told the court that the congregant and her daughter attended a church programme at Gathsamen Prayer Ministry, Kafanchan, in 2016 where Foni was the General Overseer.

Foni singled out the congregant’s daughter and declared that God revealed to him that she would study abroad and not in Nigeria. He consequently asked the congregant to invite her husband to the ministry, where he repeated the “revelation”.

The couple told Foni that they lacked the resources to fund overseas study and he advised that they should raise N1.7m which he would invest in crypto currency on their behalf and they obliged.

The cleric also told the couple that the return on investment in the crypto currency would be more than enough to cover for the daughter’s school fees and flight ticket.

However, each time the couple went to Foni to inquire about the return on investment, the cleric would browse on his laptop and declare that the investment had not matured.

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