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The internet is flooded with photos and videos of the protests outside the premise of the Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) headquarters in Abuja as a result of the rape allegation levelled against the COZA founder, Abiodun Fatoyinbo – very few reporting of the activities inside the church due to the heavy security.
However, the COZA service on Sunday [today] was monitored live by TheNewsGuru, TNG’s correspondent compiled some of the dramatic moments as well as interpret the actions in order to give our readers a better grasp of the trending storyline [RAPE SCANDAL].
The service was majorly about praise and worship loaded with testimonies. Apparently, the Busola Dakolo’s rape allegation against Pastor Fatoyinbo prompted the church to bring up eight women [all members] who are in leadership positions to speak on the ‘authentic’ testimony of the COZA they experienced.
Using various perspectives, all of them narrated how the singular experience of starting to attend COZA between 2003 and 2013 marked a profound turnaround, catapulting them from obscurity to directorship of companies, ownership of businesses and having a great marital life.
But, the aforesaid were just peripheral, the true most dramatic moments during the service is what TNG has highlighted below – enjoy it.
- Moment Fatoyinbo’s wife climbed the stage:
At 10.21am, Pastor Omodele Fatoyinbo walked up to the altar and was welcomed with a tumultuous shout of joy and clapping.
“Right in the middle of what God is doing, that is where we are!” she said, telling worshippers not to give any thought to the ‘enemy’.
“You better be sensitive, some will receive their testimony today,” an exquisitely dressed Pastor Omodele stated before leading the entire church in a recital of verses from 2 Samuel chapter 22, verses 1-7.
2. Star boy: Pst. Fatoyinbo joins wife on stage amid loud cheers from members
Thousands of COZA members were stunned as Fatoyinbo appeared on stage – it was the moment they were all waiting for.
The members resoundingly celebrated Fatoyinbo, when he mounted the podium – this was about 10.34am, he [Fatoyinbo] walked up to the altar, and spoke for six minutes, following which he blessed the church with prayers.
After acknowledging the cheers from the congregation, Fatoyinbo said: “I have the most blessed church, if I am not heading it, I’ll be glad to be a member.”
His words to his members: “Having you in my life, I am the most blessed pastor in the world. It took me a long time to get here today. I did not like what I saw today. Some if you came early, this is not what I want to put you through. I will only say something to you, if I was not a pastor of this church, I will be a member. I have been relating with all my mentors, you know I am a man under authority, I really love to listen to them. So, I am going to be giving a few instructions as time goes on but the first instruction I want to give is, be that as it may with what is going on, I am not a desperate person to say we must have the programme. With what is going on I don’t want to put any… I don’t like… I am a peaceful person, you know that. So, because of this, we are going to be having prayers every day for those who are interested to come. But we are not going to have the seven days of glory because I don’t want all these kinds of stuff. I think last month we prayed for a whole month and we do all of that. Please, let’s be people of peace. So, if you want to pray with us, you can come here to pray. But the regular seven days…, you don’t want to put your guest speakers through that. You know we love to host people properly; we don’t want to do that. And you know some of them, apart from the fact that the Lord spoke to me about that, my mentors said to me, this is what we need to do while we step in and make sure we see what is going on. And you know what we stand for in COZA. So, please let’s obey God in our mentors and be a people of peace. Also, when you are going out, they are going to direct you how to go out, please don’t fight anybody, don’t reply anybody, you came to worship. They may say things to you, it doesn’t matter. Please, behave yourselves and make sure everything is in place.—“
Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo cancelled the ‘Seven Days of Glory’s fasting and prayer programme of the church scheduled to run through the first week of July. He explained that he won’t like to put invited guests through the sort of thing that was happening outside’.
3. The moment he stopped wife on stage from making remarks about rape saga
Fatoyinbo’s wife, Modele was full of strength while on stage with her husband. She spoke about the authentic COZA experience and the fake one sponsored by the church’s critics on social media.
She held on the microphone after her husband prayed for the congregants and was obviously full of words to reel out to the members on the alleged rape scandal. She started talking, “Not even as an unbeliever would my husband rape anyone”.
However, immediately she made the statement Fatoyinbo who had left the stage came back, took the microphone from her, prayed again for the congregants and stopped his wife from making further comments as the service ended.
While this display was ongoing on the pulpit, the congregants gave resounding applause to the couple. From the look of things, Mr. Fatoyinbo enjoys the full support of his wife. So, the battle line is drawn between two powerful couple: The Dakolo’s vs the Fatoyinbo’s.