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A Nigeria pastor, Tobi Adegboyega, has dismissed claims that he was about to be deported from his current base in the United Kingdom.
Adeboyega, who recently lost his battle against deportation from the UK over an alleged £1.87 million fraud, said the allegations levelled against him are baseless and should be dismissed.
In December, an investigation by the UK Charity Commission found “serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration” of his church.
PUNCH Online reports that an immigration tribunal ruled that Adegboyega should be deported to Nigeria after investigations exposed the misuse of funds by his church.
In an interview with the BBC published on Friday, the founder of the SPAC Nation church dismissed the allegations, saying that fraud allegations against him came from “disgruntled members” of his church.
“It is false. They have been on this thing for the past four years.
“If you have 1,000 people in a place, are you telling me 30 people will not be disgruntled? How on earth do you run an organisation without disgruntled people?” he asked.
Speaking further, Adegboyega dismissed reports of a deportation order, adding that the case was an “ongoing issue”.
He said, “There is no deportation order. Let me make that clear.”
Adegboyega stated that he has decided his fate is in the hands of the judges, stressing that his church has helped get hundreds of knives off the streets and has tackled gun violence in the UK.
“We believe in a practical approach to help a community – young people coming out of low social-economic background, taking them out of crime,” he said.
Addressing criticism over his lavish lifestyle, the preacher said he puts on luxury items to connect to the new generation he is speaking to.
He said, “I put on what is right, what connects to the generation I’m speaking to, so they are not attracted to drug dealers”.
Addressing his long stay in the UK, Adegboyega said he arrived in the country at 25 in 2005 on a visitor’s visa but failed to legalise his stay.
The pastor said he assumed his family was handling his immigration paperwork.
“I lost track of time,” he said, referring to the nearly decade-long delay in applying to regularise his immigration status.
