Bishop Emmah Isong, Chairman, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) in Cross River State has accused Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers state of bribing 500 Pastors to support Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Amaechi is the Director General (DG) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council.
Bishop Isong, while reacting to claims by Governor Amaechi that N6billion was distributed to Pastors in return for their support for President Goodluck Jonathan, said ”My first answer to that will be that the governor that said that did not mention names.
“Pastor (Enoch) Adeboye himself on the 4th of February at The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM) headquarters in Lagos, in front of 6,000 pastors challenged that whoever made the allegations should mention names. Up till today, we have not heard the names of whoever collected the N6 billion to share to the pastors.
”Number two point is that: If N6 billion was shared to pastors to mobilise Christians for the elections, you should know that people like Adeboye, whom I call one of the most important Christians in Nigeria, who has the largest church would have been aware, and would have advised against it.
”Again, I in Cross River State, being the number one pentecostal and as chairman of PFN for over eight years now, I have not also collected one kobo. By these, talking about Adeboye at the national and I at the state here, I believe this N6 billion which was given in the dream has not yet been transferred to physical cash.
”My other point is that the governor that alleged this N6 billion, in October 2014 gathered 500 pastors at Presidential Hotel Port Harcourt and also gave each of them money. I can give you three account numbers and names of those who benefitted from his own money which he gave to those pastors.
”And therefore for him to accuse pastors of collecting N6 billion, is a fiction of his own imagination of a strategy he is already practicing in his own party. So, I put this accusation back to him to deny that he did not give money to pastors; which is what prompted him to wake up to say pastors have collected N6 billion. So let him begin that charity at home.
”And be that as it may, I believe that the same spirit of accusing Pastor Ayo (Oritsejafor) of $9.2 million, which was not true, is the same cabal which is cooking up N6 billion accusations”.
”The accusation is against pastors because some people are thinking that all pastors are PDP. They don’t know that a bulk of pastors support APC. It is just an assumption, however, that all pastors are PDP and Jonathan. It is not true. Some pastors in Cross River support the Labour Party (LP), some pastors in Rivers are APC, some in Imo are APGA (All Progressives Grand Alliance), some in Abuja are PDP.
“So, there is no 100 per cent gathering of pastors to a particular party. This is what the person that did that accusation does not even know. In fact by raising that alarm, he lost a lot of pastors that were supporting APC”.
”Amaechi goofed by accusing men of God and indicting them on a matter he cannot prove”, Bishop Isong added.
