High-profile Nigerian pastor Tobi Adegboyega has dismissed allegations that he was to be expelled from the UK, where his church is facing allegations of financial misconduct.
Pastor Adegboyega, director of SPAC Nation (Salvation Proclaimer Ministries Limited), now known as Nation Family, told the BBC: “There is no deportation order. Let me make that clear.”
However, he admitted that the matter was an “ongoing issue”.
Sporting two jeweled rings and a Louis Vuitton tie, the preacher says he arrived in the UK aged 25 in 2005 on a visitor's visa and assumed his family were handling his immigration papers .
But this was not the case.
“I lost time,” he said, referring to the nearly ten-year delay in applying to have his immigration status regulated.
In December, an investigation by the UK's Charity Commission found “serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration” of his church.
But Pastor Adegboyega dismissed these allegations.
“It's wrong. They've been on this thing for the last four years,” he said.
This is not the first accusation that the church has had.
In 2019, a BBC Panorama survey found that he was accused of financially exploiting young members of the congregation.
Members said they were able to provide money after taking out loans and through welfare fraud. The church denied the allegations at the time.
Pastor Adegboyega also dismissed these allegations.
“If you have 1,000 people in a place, are you telling me that 30 people are not going to be unhappy? How on earth do you run an organization without disaffected people?” he said.
The evangelical Christian church was founded in the UK as a charity in 2012 to help vulnerable people, tackle gun violence and help young offenders.
Pastor Adegboyega said his church had helped get hundreds of knives off the streets.
“We believe in a practical way to help a community – young people coming out of low socio-economic backgrounds, getting them out of crime,” he said.
Pastor Adegboyega also hit back at criticism of his lavish lifestyle and taste for designer clothes, expensive jewelry and luxury watches.
He arrived at the BBC office in central London in a Lamborghini, along with a G-Wagon (a premium Mercedes-Benz SUV) for his entourage.
“I put forward what is right, what connects with the generation I am talking about so that they are not attracted to drug dealers,” he said.
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(Getty Images/BBC)
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