Why I Parted Ways With Bishop OYEDEPO

Pastor Tunde Bakare is one of Nigeria’s most respected and influential pastors. A trained lawyer and an incredibly eloquent man of God, he cut a large chunk of his pastorial teeth under the tutelage of Pastor William Folorunsho Kumuyi, the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church. He later left the Deeper Life Ministry and joined the Redeemed Christian Church of God and again left the church afterwards to start his own ministry, the Latter Rain Assembly. The highly influential man of God was also a one-time Vice presidential candidate to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari during one of his failed presidential bids.

Today, he is the founder and Head Pastor of Citadel Global Community Church, formerly Latter Rain Assembly. He commands a lot of following even outside of his church owing to his critical views of government. He is a man that speaks truth to power no matter whose ox is gored. He is fearless. Pastor Tunde Bakare will say it as it is, even if he is the only who holds a different position from everybody else.

Another thing Pastor Tunde Bakare is hugely appreciated for by many Christians is his uncanny knowledge of the scriptures. It is often said that about Pastor Bakare that, open any part of the bible for him to teach and explain, he will definitely break that part down into bits and pieces that will be easy for anyone to assimilate. And in the same breath, he detests it when a man of God is interpreting a scripture incorrectly or out rightly making a mess of it. He does not take kindly to this. He will confront you with every ounce of blood in his vein and engage you fiercely on the subject in a bid to make you see that you got it all wrong. This was the situation several years ago when he and his erstwhile friend, Bishop David Oyedepo, founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide and presiding Bishop of The Faith Tabernacle (popularly known as Winners Chapel), had conflicting opinions on the scripture. It was at a conference they both attended. And from the moment they had this argument over the scriptures, their relationship was badly dented. It was never the same again. The duo quietly parted ways from that moment on and never attended each other’s program.

Below is Pastor Tunde Bakare’s account of how he parted ways with a man of God he was once very close to, Bishop David Oyedepo.

“There was a time, several years ago that Bishop Oyedepo and I were becoming inseparable. He was having an Outreach. I was the first person to invite him to Ota. He didn’t know where Ota was. It was at the crusade that I was doing at Ota was, that I invited him and he came to minister in one of the nights.

Thank God for what God has given to him in Ota. I’ve not seen it even one time, but I hear it’s great, it’s fantastic. I’ve not driven to Ota since I left there for Crusade, the only time I’ve driven to Ota was when Olumide’s mother died and I went there for the burial. So, I was talking about Bishop Oyedepo. He was having a seminar in Sheraton Hotel, Abuja and that morning, I’d just finished ministering and he came later. And brought a white plate and poured oil inside that white plate and he started the palms of the people who were there. And he said the following words, “As I anoint your palm, wealth will gravitate towards your hands.” But because I’d matured a little, it would’ve been right there that trouble would’ve started, but because we were staying in the same suite, himself and his wife in a room, myself and my wife in a room, it was during the Iraqi war, I remember clearly, and we’ll pray together in the living room before we go to minister, that was how close we were. So, when we got to the room, I said to him, ‘you said something downstairs and I can’t see biblical foundation for it. How will Wealth gravitate towards a person’s hands because you anointed their palm?’

And he told me, well, one of the days that Pastor Adeboye ministered for him, and he ministered that because of the anointing, the palms of Jezebel, her feet and her skull or head that were anointed, dogs did not go there because of the anointing. And I said, are you translating Jezebel anointing to them or what, because I know those truths, but how is foundation for wealth transfer? And I said, the next session, I am going to correct it, and he said, no, and I said, here ends the story. I can’t preach unless you correct that, and I carried my stuff and left the hotel and from that dat till now, we never preached for each other anymore.”

It will be recalled that some years back, Pastor Tunde Bakare had blasted Bishop Oyedepo for owning a private jet. While on national television, he had made it clear that he was not in anyway envious of Bishop Oyedepo, that he once bought a jet for business himself. The highly respected man of God also once publicly tore a book written by Bishop Oyedepo, saying it was full of errors, especially on the use of anointing oil. Hear Pastor Tunde Bakare:

“And when he then brought his excesses to bear, that was why I now tore his book on live television that this is nothing but error. But people will not know that we made up again. We made up, we were in the plane and Pastor Mbanga was on that plane and when he saw both of us eating, he couldn’t understand. The thing is, I don’t fight men. I don’t know everything but I rise in the defense of the gospel. I’m not perfect, but you have tro show me what you’re doing based on the word, but if you cannot stay within this word, then to the law and to the testimony, if they don’t speak according to this word, its because there’s no light in it, its as simple as ABC. If you point to me today the error that I have done, I will be the first to point it to the world and say, this was error. We ate and when we got down, Oyedepo turned to me and said, ‘my friend, you really offended me when you tore my book. And I said, ‘Bishop, you’re smarter than that, I didn’t tear your book, I tore my book. You wrote it, I bought it. And it was full of errors, so I tore it because I did not expect you to write such things because they are not scriptural. Bishop Oyedepo was one of those who made me stop what I was doing then, a series of television called Synagogue of Satan. We were in Ghana preaching for a prominent pastor and he asked me, have you ever spoken to Bishop Oyedepo about this? And he said, he receives special mysteries from God. I said to him, there are no more special mysteries if you can read your bible. For me, all I ask is, let us preach the gospel. And when a man in London was trying to mess him up on Ben TV by saying, the man I’m interviewing today is not one of those jet flying pastors…” I said, stop there! Before any of them, I had a Boeing 747 but I used it for business. It was a cargo company, so don’t say nonsense. If you don’t have the means, don’t condemn those who are blessed.”     Pastor Bakare acknowledges that he still keeps a close relationship with a few men of God like Pastor Mike Okonkwo, but has distanced himself from a lot of other prominent men of God based on the principles of the scripture.

“The only person I maintained steady contact with amongst the many popular pastors is Bishop Mike Okonkwo. Because Bishop Mike is not only an elder states person in the gospel, himself and his friend, the President of PFN, Dr. Felix Omobude, are two people I respect greatly.

For example, Dr. Felix Omobude and Bishop Mike Okonkwo were the only two people I reached out to during the Covid lockdown. Dr. Felix Omobude called me to find out how I was doing, I called Bishop Mike Okonkwo to find out how he and his wife were doing. And don’t think that my relationship with Dr. Mike Okonkwo was not tested, it was. But he is a man with such a large heart and he is a man that has stayed within the boundary of the Gospel. I expect them to hold me accountable if I’m dishing out error because we must not pollute the atmosphere because its going to affect the larger body and younger people. I’m not saying today that these men are in error or something, no, I’m talking within the contest of our relationship and you never can tell when people change, repent and move on. You have no right to be holding them to the past that has happened. There are reasons why these things happened and I will go into details by the grace of God when my memoir is written and I publish my relationship with these men and why we parted ways.”