“There is no deportation order”-Pastor Tobi Adegboyega
Popular Nigerian Pastor, Tobi Adegboyega has dismissed claims that he was about to be deported from the UK, where his church is facing allegations of financial misconduct.
Pastor Adegboyega, lead pastor of SPAC Nation (Salvation Proclaimer Ministries Limited), now known as Nation Family, when interviewed, told BBC: “There is no deportation order.”
He said the case is still ongoing in the court and there is no verdict yet. He also said that he arrived in the UK at age 25 in 2005 on a visitor’s visa and assumed his family was handling his immigration paperwork. Which was why he remained !llegal for a while.
“I lost track of time,” he said, referring to the decade-long delay in applying to regularise his immigration status.
He also said it would be “impossible” to move his church to Nigeria in the event he was deported.
In December, an investigation by the UK Charity Commission found “serious m!sconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration” of his church.
But Pastor Adegboyega dismissed these allegations. This is not the first allegation the church has faced.
In 2019, a BBC Panorama investigation discovered that the church had been accused of financially expl0iting young members of the congregation.
Members said they had been forced to donate money after taking out loans and through benefit fr@ud. The church denied these claims at the time.
Pastor Adegboyega said his church had helped get hundreds of kn!ves off the streets.
“We believe in a practical approach to help a community – young people coming out of low social-economic background, taking them out of cr!me,” he said.
He arrived at the BBC office in central London in a Lamborghini, along with a G-Wagon [a top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz SUV] for his entourage.
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