A pastor based in Ogun State is locked in a messy paternity row with a commercial driver following a secret affair between the clergyman and the driver’s wife exposed by the driver’s 14-year-old son, KUNLE AKINRINADE reports.

A rancorous scene occurred at the premises of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church, Ona Iye Parish in the Iloye area of Sango-Ota, Ogun State penultimate week as a commercial driver swathed by his family members and associates clashed with the pastor and founder of the church, Prophet Abiodun John, in a scandalous paternity row.

The driver, Badiru Folarin, who is the husband of a female church member brought to the church for spiritual healing, screamed that the pastor claimed ownership of his four-year-old child after he caught him having an illicit affair with his wife, Morufat.

Folarin claimed the pastor’s sexual escapades with his wife was revealed by his 14-year-old son, Saheed, who told him that his mother was always visiting and cooking for the clergyman while he was away and that the cleric in turn visited their home at odd hours.

He said: ”The pastor claimed that my in-law had given my wife to him as his wife. However, the question is, can a woman be given to two men as a wife?

”The pastor confronted me to my face that he is the biological father of our last child, a four-year-old. Yet my wife rained curses on me, saying that Ogun (Yoruba god of iron) should strike me dead so she can enjoy her benefactor.

”I am a driver. I never enjoyed my wife at home. She was always away to church for several days in the guise of vigils and special spiritual protection. My mother-in-law was disturbed about my wife’s continuous absence from home under the pretext of participation in church activities.”

Amid the yelling, screaming and cacophony of noise at the scene, Morufat told her husband’s family members and bystanders that she was not in the least prepared to leave her husband, although she conceded the paternity of the child in question to the embattled pastor when asked to choose between the latter and Folarin.

She said: ”No one should blame me for what has happened…and If you all must know, I cannot be married to two men in my life…but my husband is not ready to take care of me, he is a shameless man…I will deal with him when we return home.”

Folarin, however, retorted: ”You cannot come back to my house…anything can happen to you if you come back to my house.”

Recalling how the messy affair between the pastor and her wife began, the father of six said he did not believe that the clergyman was having an affair with his wife when neighbours alerted him until his son tipped him off that his wife was having a tryst with the cleric at his house within the church premises.

Folarin said: ”I did not realise that the pastor was sleeping with my wife.

“I am a Muslim while my wife is a Christian. She was having some spiritual attacks and went to the church for deliverance.

“Suddenly, she started frequenting the church, and when I heard that she was having an affair with the pastor, I confronted her but she denied it.

”She would send my children to me for upkeep while at the church and I usually sent money to her, not knowing that she was using my money to prepare meal for her pastor-lover.”

”The pastor knows me very well. He had even given me some spiritual items for use that would attract fortune, but my transport business witnessed a reversal of fortune instead.

”I have been married to Morufat for more than 30 years and our first child is 30 years old. I was giving her about N6,000 every day for upkeep.

“When I got home a few days ago, she rained curses on me. Her action got my 14-year-old son, Saheed, angry, and he opened up that his mother had been flirting with the pastor to the extent that she was cooking for the cleric with the money I had been giving her as daily upkeep.

“My son said his mother had just returned from the church where she took food to the pastor shortly before I returned home on that day.

”The pastor told me to my face that he is the biological father of my last child, a daughter (Alimot). “I gave my wife the sum of N68,000 when she was pregnant with our last child, but she gave the money to the pastor and relocated to the church for several months under the pretext of seeking spiritual protection.

“Along the line, we had an accommodation problem, and that was when I gave her money for a new accommodation. Instead, she spent the money on her lover and later claimed she was sick and that she used the money for treatment. ”Again, I got some money and got another apartment for her at Plaza area in Sango-Ota despite her insistence that she did not want me to get another accommodation.

“I warned her against having any close affair with the pastor and asked her to stay in the new apartment.

“Surprisingly, she complained she did not like the fact the apartment is in a one-storey building.

“I would give her N3,000 in the morning and N3,000 in the evening because I usually left home around 5 am to take an early turn to pick up passengers at the motor park.

“Last week, my son told me that his mother had been at the pastor’s house for four days. I stormed the place and I was shocked to find them together in a room half naked.

“The pastor tied a towel around his waist while my wife also tied a piece of cloth around her waist while she pushed two of my little children to play outside the room.

”She started abusing me and calling me all sorts of names. I reported the affair to my wife’s uncle and the old man slapped the pastor for luring my wife to bed to the extent of impregnating her.

“We tried to take my children away from her but she bit off my hand while the pastor claimed that he is the father of my last daughter, who is my sixth child.

“The pastor told all of us at the scene that he is the biological father of my daughter and that I cannot take the girl away from him.

“My wife said she was not ready to leave me and that she cannot also leave her pastor-lover. “I later discovered that she had aborted a pregnancy for the same pastor some years ago.

“I cannot take my wife back and because the pastor has vowed to deal with me. “I have 13 siblings and only three of us are the surviving children of my parent.

“I don’t want the pastor to kill me. Nigerians should save me from the ruthless pastor.”

Speaking with our reporter, Saheed, Folarin’s son, who allegedly exposed his mother’s illicit affair with the pastor, said his mother threatened to poison him for exposing her affair with the pastor.

”My mother threatened to poison me for exposing her escapades with the pastor of our church to my father.

“She called me an unfortunate child for telling my father that she even cooked for the pastor. “I know she attacked me because I knew too much about her secret affair with the pastor.”

Giving his own side of the story, Pastor John explained that he is the biological father of Morufat’s sixth child.

He said he had been having an on and off affair with the woman in the last 20 years. He said: ”My name is  Prophet John Abiodun, the founder and pastor of Cherubim and Seraphim Church, Orisun Iye Parish.

“I have been dating Morufat for about 20 years now. She told me that her husband abandoned her with two children. ”My church was formerly located in the Ijamido area of Ota before I moved it to Iloye area of Sango-Ota.

“Morufat came to my church about 20 years ago with two young children, Serifat and Saidat, for deliverance and spiritual protection “When I noticed that she did not leave after some time, I asked her to bring any of her family members.

”She later invited her aunt, Mama Lekan, who frequently visited her at the church. “She stayed with me in the church for about six months, during which we started an affair.

“She later left and I did not see her again until about a year later.”By the time she returned to my church in 2004, she was already pregnant for her husband.

“I reprimanded her for getting pregnant for the same man she had claimed was irresponsible.

”She said her husband had abandoned her again and bolted with a widow.

“I took her to a hospital when she went into labour and carried out special prayers for her and she was safely delivered of the baby. Afterward, I did not see her again.

”I ran into her again when I was supervising the construction of my new church building in the neighbourhood of the apartment where she lives with her husband.

“She later ran to me when she was owing a lender, and that was when we reignited our affair. ”She had a disagreement with her husband and said she was no longer interested in her marriage.

“She said she would have left her husband a long time ago but for her mother’s insistence that she must not leave her husband. By that time, she already had five children. ”My affair with her and the controversial pregnancy led to the separation with my own wife who could not stand it and left me about three years ago.

“Morufat’s mother knows that I am the real father of the baby, and I struck a deal with her mother who was accompanied to my home by one of her friends that I would come back for my daughter when she is 10 years old.“It was during the discussion that my wife overheard that I was responsible for Morufat’s pregnancy, hence, she quit our marriage.

“It is a pity that Morufat’s mother is not here. I would have challenged her to say the truth. ”I took her(Morufat) on my motorcycle to the hospital when it was time to deliver the baby.

“I paid for her delivery at the hospital, although I heard that her husband had given her the delivery money too before she was discharged from the hospital. “I was not the one that buried the baby’s placenta: her husband did. However, I am sure that I am the biological father of the girl.”

Prophet Abiodun boasted that he is not ashamed to affirm his affair with Morufat and that she was impregnated by him.

”I can boldly say that I was responsible for the training of some of her children in vocations.

“The husband was not responsible for the upbringing or naming of any of their children. “Morufat ran to me one day and had a clash with my wife, and that was when my wife took the final decision to leave me.

”I cannot be ashamed to say it anywhere, any day, even it is on a radio programme. “I named the girl Bose because she was born on Sunday, while her husband named her Shadiat. She was a twins as was revealed to me by ‘God’, but the second child was evacuated from her womb dead.”

Prophet Abiodun, however, added that he cannot take Morufat as wife because of her past relationship with other men. ”I cannot marry Morufat because I know about her journey and some of the men she had dated in the past,” he said.

“I am only claiming my child because I know that she was impregnated by me and I have a scan of the baby. “Morufat is 46 years old, and she said it in the presence of everyone that I am the real father of her last baby.“Besides, my family members and hers know that I am the real father of the baby, and I am saying it again that I am not ashamed to say so.”