A pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, FESTAC Town, in the Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of Lagos State has been murdered.
Pastor Babatunde Dada, was stabbed to death inside the RCCG Chapel of Resurrection on 13 Road, 6th Avenue, FESTAC Town on Thursday, December 2.
The assailants are believed to be new converts who joined the church only the Sunday before the incident.
According to the Punch, the two youths were said to have come out during an altar call and surrendered their lives to Jesus.
When they later told the church they had no place to stay, they were allowed to stay on the church premises.
However, they used the proximity to the church to monitor activities around the place. It was reported that they had barely spent a week in the church when they attacked the parish pastor.
The wife of the deceased pastor, Bose, told Punch on the phone that she called her husband on the day of the incident and he promised to come home to rest.
She said, “My husband was killed on December 2 at the church. He was the admin/accounts officer, as well as the parish pastor. I was not with him when he was killed, but I was told that they collected money from him. I heard that those who killed him were new converts.”
A family member, who is also a security expert, Mr Abolarinwa Olatunbosun, disclosed that the pastor was killed after withdrawing money from a bank.
He said, “The pastor went to a bank to withdraw some money and went to rest on the first floor of the church. Two persons said to be new converts went to meet him upstairs, broke his head and killed him.
“The matter was reported to the police and one of the suspects, who ran to Ilorin, has been arrested.”
Olatunbosun said the killing might be for ritual purposes, adding that the assailants were suspected Internet fraudsters, aka Yahoo boys.
The expert said criminals were beginning to attack churches and pastors because they believed there was money in church.
He advised religious centres to be security conscious and put in place strategies that could stop criminals from killing, kidnapping and robbing leaders and worshippers.
