TheCable

Johnson Suleman, senior pastor of the Omega Fire Ministries, says he has never physically met Stephanie Otobo, identified as a former stripper in a Canadian night club.

The fiery preacher denied any involvement with Otobo, who he said claimed to have given her life to Christ and demanded for financial help.

In a statement on Monday, Phrank Shaibu, spokesman of the pastor, said this reacting to a demand of N500 million by Festus Keyamo on behalf of Otobo, his client.

Otobo is accusing Suleman of using the police to intimidate and detain her after proposing marriage.

But Shaibu said Keyamo was misled into believing that there was a relationship between the pastor and Otobo.

He said the lady was caught up by her own machinations as she was arrested while trying to withdraw money paid into her account by the church in a sting operation coordinated by the police.

“Unknown to Keyamo, the police was alerted following several attempts by the said lady to blackmail Apostle Suleiman. The police also recorded her conversations making the frivolous demand,” the statement by Shaibu read.

“The highpoint of the drama was her attempt to withdraw money paid into her account at the instance of the police. The lawyer should know that his client was arrested by the police with abundance of evidence confirming that she is indeed a serial blackmailer.

“Let me place it on record that, the lady in question is a self-confessed stripper in a night club in Canada, who like thousands of people that seek help from Apostle Johnson Suleman, called to pretentiously convey her intentions to embrace Christ and also needed financial help to keep body and soul as she no longer had a means of livelihood after quitting as a stripper.

“Does Keyamo or his serial blackmailing client have pictures of the visit by Apostle Suleiman or his representatives to her parents? In any case, how could such a relationship have existed when Apostle and the said  lady have never met physically?

“How could he have made a promise of a house and a lifestyle comparable to what she has in Canada when he has never been to her house or seen her physically as to have an idea of her living standards?

“If Keyamo was not misled or excited by the prospects of a jackpot of N500 million and or an opportunity to save his already dwindling career in law practice from total caput by latching on the popularity of Apostle Suleman vide this tendentiously devilish plot and skewed romantic fantasy, then we may as well demand an evaluation of his mental state along with his client who was obviously on the verge of delusion before she was arrested.

“It’s either one of the options stated above or he is trying to engage in a proxy war on behalf of some unknown agents who had become irritated by Apostle’s stand on national issues. His inference to the latter incident in Keyamo’s letter to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) confirms this benign thought.”

The spokesman said all plans to bring disrepute to the preacher “would fall like a pack of cards.”

He said if Keyamo and Otobo think they could capitalise on the famed generosity of Suleman to extort N500 million through this case, “they sure have missed it.”