Quincy Ayodele, an elder of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), City of David Parish, has denied claims that Idowu Iluyomade disobeyed the church’s leadership before establishing his ministry.
Speaking during an interview with Daddy Freeze on Monday, Ayodele expressed her shock at the church’s decision to bar Iluyomade from returning after his three-month suspension.
“We were expecting that after the three months, he would be restored to the City of David. But to our surprise, what we heard was that he was given a letter that he must not step into the City of David,” she said.
Ayodele was surprised by the move, considering Iluyomade’s close relationship with the General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye.
“Pastor Adeboye and Pastor Iluyomade were like father and son… They are so close… There is nothing Adeboye wanted that Iluyomade would not go out of his way to make available,” she noted.
She stated that the former City of David pastor did not act against RCCG’s authority.
“He was told not to enter City of David. Why they did that is only known to our daddy, the governing council, and God. I cannot answer why. But we are curious,” she added.
She revealed that church elders wrote letters to Pastor Adeboye, pleading for a reversal of the decision, but no response was received.
“They wrote letters and signed their names on the letters to Pastor Adeboye. But there was no response from Baba Adeboye,” she said.
After being barred from City of David, Iluyomade and his wife moved to Kings Court, another RCCG parish he founded, but were later asked to leave.
“The pastor in the church welcomed them and accorded them the honour of the founding pastors, only to be told later that they should not be accommodated,” she explained.
Ayodele questioned why Iluyomade was being treated this way despite his many contributions to RCCG.
“He established free schools, ran weekly feeding programmes for the less privileged, and used church funds to help society,” she noted.
She also dismissed claims that the late Access Bank CEO, Herbert Wigwe, was the main sponsor of the Trinity Towers project.
“Many people contributed to the construction of the tower, and some donated as much as Wigwe,” she clarified.
She claimed that several people tried to mediate between Pastor Adeboye and Iluyomade, but their pleas went unanswered.
“They went to beg him, and he said he (Iluyomade) was paying a loan. But he has been paying loans without coming to ask for money from you. So why don’t you leave him and let him finish paying the loan?
“He said it’s okay; he will let him come back. He did not. Other people went to beg him, rolling on the floor and asking for his forgiveness… He did not,” she said.
When asked if the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria intervened, she replied, “Who will talk to him if God has not talked to him? My daddy hears from God. It is what God says that he tells us, and we believe him. He will say ‘my daddy says,’ and we believe him.”
She stated that Iluyomade never planned to establish a church and only found himself in that position after being abandoned.
“He does not even know how to start a church. He was an Anglican before he joined RCCG. His father was a reverend. He had left Anglican for almost 32 years. If he goes back to Anglican, where is he going to start from?
“I can tell you that the people they helped abandoned them in their moment of trials. They were not even praying for him in the City of David that he left. That was what made me go to him. When I got to him, he was weeping, telling me that he was told not to step into the church,” she said.
She was particularly shocked when Pastor Adeboye reportedly suggested that those who left RCCG were demons and that the Trinity Towers project was influenced by evil forces.
“I started wondering if this my daddy is talking. What is going on?” she asked.
Ayodele added that she had not joined Iluyomade’s new church because she still believed the matter could be resolved.
She said that if given the opportunity, she would personally plead with Pastor Adeboye to forgive Iluyomade.
