Nigeria’s richest pastor and self-styled bishop, David Oyedepo, has made a glistening addition to his business empire by floating an airline called Dominion Air.
Oyedepo, who a few years ago ignited debate on flamboyant
Christianity by acquiring his fourth private jet, is the owner of
Dominion Publishing House, Covenant University and an elite secondary
school called Faith Academy.
Listed by Forbes as Nigeria’s wealthiest pastor with a net worth of
$150 million, David Oyedepo is a preacher and founder of Living Faith
Church Worldwide, more popularly known as Winners’ Chapel. Besides his
four private jets, Forbes also mentioned the preacher’s luxury homes in
London and the United States.
Sources within the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), the agency charged with business
registration in Nigeria, confirmed the registration of Dominion Air
with David Oyedepo as its chairman. Another source within a Lagos-based
insurance firm known to handle most of Oyedepo’s businesses said the
airline project had been in the works for six years and was only made a
reality this year.
The broker who balked at putting figures to the number of aircrafts
so far purchased authoritatively said none of them is on lease.
If Oyedepo’s entry into the airline business is creating exciting
buzz in Nigeria’s stock exchange, the same cannot be said with the
Christian community, especially the Pentecostal congregations, where the
so-called men of God have been criticised for alienating their poor
followers with their flamboyant lifestyle.
In a swift reaction, Lawrence Ofili, a member of the Save Nigeria
Group (SNG), “Pastor Oyedepo by his choice of businesses has severally
demonstrated a disconnect between himself and hundreds of thousands of
poor Christians who he claimed to have come to deliver. About 90 per
cent of public schools in this country were built by early Christian
missionaries; today Oyedepo has Covenant University but it is for
children of millionaires,” says Mr Ofili.
“Even with the high school called Faith Academy, I am aware that most
children in his congregation dream to be educated there but their
parents who probably pay tithes and offerings cannot afford the school
fees. His Faith Tabernacle accommodates 50,000 worshippers every Sunday;
how many of them are going to fly Dominion Air? Honestly this project
is not for the poor. He should have settled for mechanised farming to
engage unemployed men and women.”
