Suspended the senior pastor of City of David Parish, Idowu Iluyomade, whose wife, Siju held a glamorous 60th birthday celebration a week after the death of Herbert Wigwe, a strong member of the Church who died in a helicopter crash has tendered his resignation from the church.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) earlier reported that Idowu was replaced by Pastor Charles Kpendei and asked by the church governing council to step down and report to the headquarters of the church in Ebutta Metta for three months pending investigation of the allegations against him.
“It was not Pastor (Enoch) Adeboye that suspended him. The governing council decided to suspend him. I think it’s a decision in the right direction. Though some believe it is coming late. They needed to investigate some of the things people were saying against him and the church,” a top pastor in the church was quoted as saying.
The transfer however didn’t go down well with illuyomade and his wife, Siju, who were conspiciously absent during church service last sunday when his transfer was announced, hence his decision to pull out of the RCCG family.
A reliable source disclosed that the cleric turned in his resignation letter on Tuesday June 4 2024.
Illuyomade’s suspension and transfer may not be unconnected to obscene and lavish 60th birthday of his wife held at Eko Hotel after a prominent member of the church and the former group chief executive officer of Access Holdings, Herbert Wigwe, his wife, Chizoba and son Chizi and several others died in a helicopter crash in California, United States on February 9.
After the party, social media was flooded with stories that the Iluyomades were not sensitive to the plight of the Wigwe’s, who until death were strong members of the parish.
Many leaders and members of the church also considered it innsenitve as netizens argued that the entire Church should have set some days aside to mourn Herbert, wife and son, considering the fact that the family was a strong financiers of the church
The act prompted the Wigwe family to distance themselves from the illuyomades and the City of David branch.
The church was conspicuously left out of the Wigwe’s family funeral.