The leadership of Omega Fire Ministries, led by fiery Apostle Johnson Suleiman, has sacked one of its pastors, Joseph Aiyedun. The cleric was relieved of his duties after it was revealed that he used the ministry’s name and bank account to register for the popular money-doubling scheme, Mavrodi Mundial Movement (MMM).

The church’s head of administration, David Apelorioye, made this known in a statement.

Speaking during a service in 2016, Suleiman condemned the MMM scheme, describing it as demonic and satanic. He also said participants needed prayers.

The statement from the church reads: “The management of Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide is using this medium to react to a news making the rounds on the social media regarding one of the pastors, who used the ministry’s name to register for the MMM scheme. Ordinarily, the church would not have reacted to the story because of falsehoods being published regularly by some blogs and news websites, whose credibility are questionable.

“But after a thorough investigation by the church authority, it was established that one of our branch pastors in Aba, Pastor Joseph Aiyedun, indeed, participated in the scheme. The church authority decided to expel Pastor Aiyedun not because he registered for the ponzi scheme but because he involved the ministry’s name in the satanic adventure.

“And we discovered that he was able to use the ministry’s name because he had access to the account of his branch, which itself is against the church’s guidelines and a fraud likely to have been carried out in connivance with the branch’s account department. We are still investigating further to unravel the whole activities.”

Mavrodians, the name of account holders in MMM Nigeria, are still unable to get paid a return on their investment more than 96 hours after the Ponzi scheme returned. Some MMM participants said although they were able to request for their money, they have not been paid as the system is still frozen, just as it was in December 2016.

•Text courtesy of The Guardian.

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