The Federal Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) has arrested a journalist, Ohio Ojeagbase, who allegedly blackmails popular pastors and celebrities in the country.
The police also arrested a lawyer, Barr. Uche Iloani who was accused of working together with the journalist to allegedly extort money from highly placed men of God and prominent people in the country.
The suspects according to information made available to us are used to planting people in form of staffers into the homes and working places of their targets to get information about them.
In the case of Bishop Chris kwakpovwe, publisher of the popular daily devotional booklet; OUR DAILY MANNA, and the General Overseer of the Manna Prayer Mountain, they planted a lady in his church who deceitfully was working as staff but providing information to the blackmailers.
We reliably gathered that one Ms Rita, who had been working in the media department of the church as the Head of Department for some years was accused of stealing equipments worth N5.6million and when she was asked to pay for the missing equipments as the head of the unit, she absconded from the church office claiming she was not a thief. This however prompted her arrest by the church/ODM ministry management and a case was filed at the Area H Police Command, Ogudu, Lagos.
Meanwhile, it was the arrest that brought about Barrister Uche Iloano who claimed to be her counsel and had asked for her immediate release with a plea to the church to settle out of court.
But as soon as she was released, Mr Ohio Ojeagbase sent a letter to the bishop saying that he maltreated and threatened the life of one his staff, Rita and that he was going to publish the story in Probiters Report and demanded for millions of naira to kill the story.
A meeting was held with the team which includes Barrister Uche Iloano, Mr Ohio and Ms Rita. At the meeting, after a lot of empty threats to publish the story of sexual harassment and threat to life about the Bishop, they agreed to make a settlement to avoid the story going viral claiming that they do not want to malign the revered man of God. At this stage it became clear that they’ve set up Rita as a mole in the bishop’s office to record her conversations over the years with the bishop. They claimed that: “Whatever we tell the public will be believed since we have 250million online membership. It will take the bishop years to repair any damage done. Please pay up now.”
The lawyer therefore asked for N15million naira for inconveniencies tagged as professional fees and the inconveniences his client, Ms Rita had gone through during her arrest and detention. While the journalist requested for 50% of whatever is paid to the lawyer. In the pretence of agreeing to their terms, the money was negotiated and they arrived at N18million for both the journalist and the lawyer.
But when the man of God through his publicist complained of not having up to such amount of money, they suggested to him to bring a property document (original documents) and they will help him facilitate a quick loan from a bank so he can make the payment without stress.
This was where the man of God knew it very clearly that this plan was meant to be blackmail him and he promptly reported the case to the police who advised that further meetings be electronically recorded and that was done!
We gathered that another meeting was arranged for the payment to be made on Wednesday 12 April, 2017 for them to finally meet with the Bishop at an arranged venue around Ogudu, Lagos. When everyone had arrived for the meeting and they were about starting, the police stormed the place and arrested everybody.
The case according to the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) will be charged to court. Speaking about the blackmailers, Bishop Kwakpovwe revealed that he had planned the arrest of the blackmailers from the beginning. “The Holy Spirit had told me that this was a plot to bring me down as a man of God but I was proactive in my approach to get to the bottom before they will carry out their nefarious acts and go scot free.”