Very credibly, soberly put together, Busola Dakolo,
wife of popular artiste and mother of three opened up on how Pastor Biodun
Fatoyinbo, Senior Pastor at the Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) on two
occasions within one week forcefully had carnal knowledge of her while she was
a teenage member of that church. It
would appear that Fatoyinbo and his circle of friends had dared Timi Dakolo and
his wife to come out clear on non-specific cryptic allegations which Timi had
been making on some social media. The
Dakolos took the challenge and what resulted was a two-hour interview with media
personality Chude Jideonwo. The video has since gone
viral on several platforms.
Initially, there was no response from Fatoyinbo or
COZA, but surrogates fiercely shot down Mrs Dakolo using unprintable names. This only heated the polity the more, with
many sympathizers spontaneously arising to her defence. The climax was a mass protest
led by some media personalities to COZA demanding the matter be
investigated. At this juncture,
Fatoyinbo announced that he had been advised by his mentors to step down for a
while, possibly to let things cool down.
Meanwhile the heat was turned full blast on the Dakolos. After an initial gestapo-style arrest by the
Police was thwarted,
the police came out frontally with a warrant
inviting the couple to come answer charges of defamation against Fatoyinbo! The invitation letter bore the full detailed
address of the Dakolos and was made public.
The security implication was obvious and alarming. At the same time, the Police apparently ignored the initial letter of complaint the Dakolos
had officially filed against Fatoyinbo.
More heat for the Dakolos as outspoken and nationally
respected Femi
Fani Kayode (even while disclosing that his wife attends COZA), poured
bitter vitriols on Mrs Dakolo, denouncing her as “accuser of the
brethren.” At the same time, two notable members of the
Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) paid a solidarity visit
to COZA, where they were quoted as saying: "We are in support of your
pastor. We stand by him and this church … the gate of hell shall not prevail
against this church."
The national body of CAN had previously demonstrated
considerable vacillation on the matter, first arguing that the issue, though
condemnable if true, does not concern the CAN since COZA does
not subscribe to CAN membership. Later, CAN reasoned that since both the
accused and the accuser are Christians, both are automatically members of the
CAN and the matter will be investigated and settled by CAN “as a family issue”. However, following the public outrage that
trailed the solidarity visit to COZA, the national body of CAN through one of
her Directors, hurriedly dissociated itself from the visit and eventually
concurred that an official police
investigation would be the appropriate line of action.
Church Arise! considers it shameful and incredible
that ordinarily reasonable people will summarily denounce a credible victim
rather than support a call for an impartial investigation. Or at worst, a quiet
private settlement of the matter.
Truth of the matter is that CA! is not at all surprise
at the allegation. And we believe that
were it not for the popular personalities involved, the matter would probably
not have caught the attention of a public whose conscience has become deadened to
the myriads of incidents of sexual
molestations now at an epidemic level in our society.
Even with Mr Fatoyinbo, there were other
allegations of rape, showing that the case with Busola Dakolo was not a one-off
event. But for us, the most revealing of
the stories was that by the lady, simply known as Ese Walter, who insisted her
extensive sexual affairs with Fatoyinbo were largely consensual acts between
two adults. She however clearly narrated
how she was lured into the affair by Mr Fatoyinbo. Ese
has since deleted her Blog. But a copy can be found here: https://www.informationng.com/2013/08/my-affair-with-pastor-biodun-fatoyinbo-of-coza-ese-walter.html
Our interest in this case, is to draw attention to a
statement by the said Ese. She said
after getting through the initial shock of her respected Pastor luring her into
sex and the affairs became regular, she at a point asked Fatoyinbo how he could
be at peace with their relationship, while at the same time continuing to
passionately preach against the very act.
In her actual words:
“At some
point, I got really confused about what Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo and I were
doing that I had to ask how he handles it. I will never forget what he said to
me. He said and I quote, “I will teach you a level of grace
that you don’t understand.”
Yes,
it all boils down to “grace” or actually more accurately, hypergrace - a
meaningless coinage that attempts to hype the already superlative concept of
Grace!
On her
blog, Ese recorded her response to this offer of more ‘indepth teaching:’
“My mind couldn’t fathom that somehow grace was enough covering for not
just fornication on my path, adultery on his path and the many lies that was
bound to follow what we were doing that was clearly abominable….. I had no
intention of understanding a grace that would permit me to go on doing things
that were wrong..”
This indeed is the elephant in the room, which everybody
is pretending not to see! This whole
case is all about the hypergrace doctrine of the Once-Saved-Always-Saved crowd. The statement attributed to Fatoyinbo is
indeed a standard cliché that has been repeated over and over by several hypergrace
teachers in various climes. According to the standard teaching in
hypergrace, catching the deeper meaning of grace supposedly enables one to
commit any sin with impunity. The
movement insists (contrary to scriptures, e,g. 1 Jhn 5:16-17) that all sins are
equal; and while for some their besetting sin might be gossip, or prayelessness
for instance, for others, it might be a proclivity to sexually abuse minors and
others under their trust. And all the
sins, no matter the category, have been pre-forgiven, so the sinner, provided
he/she is sufficiently instructed in the message of “grace,” might as well
continue in sin and watch grace abound to take care of the sin!
The critical fallacy of the grace-turned-lasciviousness
hypergrace doctrine is that while the “magnitude” of sins might indeed not make
any difference with the LORD, the “quality” of sin does. Any sin, no matter how “trivial” that is
deliberately committed by a Christian, is an affront to the Almighty, and is tantamount
to “mocking God.” Galatians 6:7 however
assures that God’s goodness cannot be mocked, and people who persist in such
type of sins might sooner or later find themselves in the very dangerous position
that none can “renew them again unto repentance” (Heb. 6:6). Anyone who cannot repent is done
for and clearly hell-bound!
Our position in this write-up is that there are
really two victims in this trending rape saga. Pastor Fatoyinbo is as much a victim just as
Busola is! And the real villain, the
teaching of hypergrace, quietly manages to keep itself out of the fray, waiting
for the next set of victims.
This position is eloquently illustrated by the
testimony of an old friend of Pastor Fatoyinbo. Fellow cult member with him at the
University of Ilorin, Rev Dapo Daramola is now a clergy as well as the Head of Media
and Communications at the Methodist Church.
He gave a sober description of Fatoyinbo’s gradual descent from a
fire-brand irreproachable lover of Christ to a man who could now be credibly
accused of being a serial rapist.
Referring
to himself and Fatoyinbo, Rev. Daramola quipped:
“Did we give our lives to Jesus genuinely? Yes, we did. Did we face
challenges that tested our faith? Yes, we did. Was Abiodun Fatoyinbo starting a
church because he wanted money? No, because the parents were well to do; in
fact, his father till he died was a chieftain of the PDP and was even given an
honour by our church. It wasn’t money. I have always been Orthodox in Christ. I
know when he started; I know how many times we did 40 and 70 days of prayer and
fasting. We were serious Christians. …We didn’t start up like bread and butter
Christians. We knew that we were vulnerable to other fraternities who couldn’t
do anything to us because they knew that we were Black Axe, but because we were
now alone, there was no shield. …Black Axe was not going to fight on our behalf
or defend us, so we, more or less, risked our lives to serve God. We knew where
we were coming from.”
Hitting the
nail on the head, Rev Daramola delved into an area no member of the Hypergrace
family wants to hear:
“Can a
man fall into temptation as he grows in faith? Yes! It’s very much possible…..For
you to be a Christian, it means you must recognize that you have certain
challenges which need to be deliberately worked upon. We take grace for
granted, we misuse grace for liberty and for unending license to misbehave. It
was self-indulging…..For me, it is self-indulgence, something that you know you
ought to deal with but you refused to deal with it because you feel that grace
will be sufficient” https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/07/more-damning-allegations-against-coza-pastor-how-fatoyinbo-got-it-wrong-former-school-mate/
He closed
with an advice for his former friend:
“I believe God is using this
process to talk to him on something and I think it’s beyond all of these things
we are even looking at. I think if he does a proper soul-searching, he will
come to terms with what it is”.
In our opinion, instead of arguing endlessly about
whether Fatoyinbo raped then teenage girl Busola and others or not; he or any
of the pastors in the hypergrace movement, should rather be challenged to come
out to publicly denounce rapists as slaves of sin (John 8:34). Would they publicly agree that people who
having lost control of themselves are secretly indulging in actions they
themselves are ashamed to own up to are children of darkness (Eph 5:11-12)? And consequently are hell-bound except they
repent (Eph. 5:5)?
Of course, doing that will exactly throw
the axe at the very root of their central defining doctrine! This is precisely why CA! has devoted several
regular editions and a special
edition to alert the Body of Christ of this menace that is currently
wrecking unimaginable havoc, corrupting our youths in particular.
Denominational doctrines may indeed
differ. But all Christians ought to be
able to agree on the answer to this simple and urgent question: Should a sexual predator be admonished to repent of his deed and seek
help to prevent further acts? Or should
he be encouraged to continue in his “weakness” assured that even future
episodes are already pre-forgiven him of God?
It is a sign of the end times that the Church cannot boldly ask such a
straightforward question. Nor dare
address the open denunciation of repentance by many so-called men of God who preach
that repenting from sin and confessing such is indeed the ultimate sin which
should never be contemplated? Ouch!
One good thing that could come out of this sordid
and sad story is the Church in Nigeria paying attention to the damning and
destructive influence of the hypergrace doctrine and addressing it squarely
once and for all. Please see our
detailed writeup on the Hypergrace doctrine here.
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