By Emmanuel Adeoye
A fraudulent Pastor based in Ondo State has been sent to jail in Ekiti State by a Magistrate Court sitting in Ado Ekiti, precisely at the Ado Ekiti Correctional Facility for defrauding people using a fake Orphanage Home.
Giving his judgement on Friday, Magistrate Awosika K.O. in charge of Court 4 ordered that the suspect by the name Pastor Ologun be remanded in the Ado Ekiti Correctional Facility till the 10th of August, 2023 for hearing.
According to the report from the Court, “the suspect known as Pastor Ologun was accused of sponsoring radio jingle few years back asking the members of the public to come forward to help his bogus orphanage home based in Ayegunle in Oka Akoko in Ondo State”.
The report has it further that, “the jingle aired on a popular radio station in Ekiti State attracted many unsuspecting members of the public who approached the suspect, Pastor Ologun for the adoption of some of the orphans in order to help the orphanage home”.
However, Pastor Ologun’s fraudulent activities became a public knowledge a year after the programme, when victims approached the producer of the programme that they had paid various sums for adoption of children from the orphanage without any fruitful result.
Evidences before the court also has it, that the Pastor in question always gathered strayed children together to pose as the inmates of his non-existing orphanage home.
The lists of those already discovered by the court to have fell as victim to the fraudulent activities and antics of the Pastor are Mrs. Olusola Balogun from Lagos who was swindled of her sum of N550,000; Sister Ruth from Lagos –N600,000 and Mrs. Ogunleye from Ado-Ekiti –N600,000.
Others are Mr. Okunola from Ado Ekiti – N650,000 Mrs. Bamisile from Aramoko Ekiti – N350,000 and others yet unknown.
The deluge of complaints from the victims to the radio producer backed with evidence of payment forced the producer to report the matter to the Commissioner of Police, Ekiti State Command, Mr. Ogundare Dare Emmanuel, who ordered for the arrest of the suspect.