David Timilehin, a victim of a failed land deal involving Prophet Marcus Tibetan of the Celestial Church of Christ, has cried out over the threat to his life even as Prophet Tibetan is yet to refund the N65.5 million allegedly paid into his account.
The Economic and Financial Crime Commission has also stepped into the alleged fraudulent land deal linked to rave-making Prophet. This is following a petition by Timilehin’s lawyer, Mr Ayo Durojaiye.
In a telephone conversation with Church Times Mr. Durojaiye said his client, David Timilehin has a very strong case. The onus according to him is for the duo of Tibetan and Mrs Omolara Akintonde to refund his client’s money. “We have petitioned the EFCC and the agency has adopted the case and would act accordingly,” he said.
Mrs Omolara Akintonde
The land issue
Prophet Tibetan had played the role of a middleman between Mrs. Akintonde a former first lady of Ogun State and David Timilehin, his former church member; who wanted to buy land from Akintonde.
Timilehin transferred the N65.5 million to Prophet Tibetan based on trust hoping that it would be delivered to Mrs. Akintonde as payment for the land.
But he could not continue the deal when he suspected the land Akintonde wanted to sell was not what she promised.
He also discovered the land in question was not meant for private use. He then requested a refund of the money that he was no longer interested in the deal.
Unfortunately, he has not been able to get a refund despite putting pressure on the duo of Akintonde and Tibetan.
Just last month a number of online media including Church Times reported the matter.
Tibetan had claimed that the money had been paid to Akintonde. On the other hand, Akintonde denied having anything to do with Timilehin. She asked him to meet Tibetan for his money.
Emotional blackmail
Timilehin said since he embarked on the move to get a refund, Prophet Tibetan has subjected him to emotional and spiritual blackmail while also threatening his life.
Besides, both the prophet and Akintonde allegedly blocked his contact and dared him to take whatever action he wanted to take.
“I keep telling them that I am too young for what they are making me pass through. It’s like they want to kill me before my time. I want to tell Nigerians that if I die they should hold Prophet Tibetan responsible because it’s my entire life that they want to confiscate,” Timilehin moaned.
Making a recap, he said there are several reasons why he needed to get his money back. “In the first place, they told me the land was close to Dangote Refinery. I discovered it is not but rather in far away Epe.
“ It’s a remote area and the land could not have cost what they collected from me. We discovered that the land is Lagos State land that has been earmarked for public use and not for private use. It is not land I can buy and say I want to resell
“Initially, Prophet Tibetan did not want me to get a lawyer. But it was the lawyer I engaged when I suspected foul play that made me realise that the land they want to sell is a scam.”
Timilehin alleged that the duo of Tibetan and Akintonde may have been duping people before now. “Where I began to suspect is that the woman was asked by Prophet Tibetan to move away from her office accommodation. They are using the land as bait but in reality, the land was allocated for the purpose of building a refinery by the Lagos State government to Akintonde.”
Conversation between Prophet Tibetan and Timilehin:
They want to kill me
He said also that Prophet Tibetan has been using subtle blackmail and threat to cow him. “my life is no longer safe. Their intention is to exterminate me after I paid the money because, on a normal day, I could not have paid such an amount without due process. It was like I was hypnotised by the Cele Prophet. Now that I have come to my senses, they are not comfortable. That is why Prophet Tibetan has been doing everything to buy time hoping that something bad will happen to me.”
Explaining why it took so long for him to ask for a refund, he said, “In the first place I was not thinking about a refund. I sincerely wanted to buy the land because Prophet Tibetan talked me into it. Since I am into the real estate business, I saw the investment opportunity in the land.
“By the way, if I had been given the papers for the land I probably would not have pursued a further case on the matter.
“I made three different attempts to collect the papers from Prophet Tibetan which failed. The first time I wanted to collect the papers, he told me there was a mistake in the name written on it and that the name had to be corrected.
‘It was supposedly corrected and returned to Prophet Tibetan but he refused to give it to me.’
Timilehin said Tibetan once showed him the document for the land in his living room on his church premises. ‘But he told me he wanted to be sure the land is genuine before delivering the paper to me.
I also tried on two other occasions but he told me he is still waiting on his brother who is a Colonel in the Army to get some of his boys to escort him to the land. Those were his excuses’
It turned out that the document according to Timilehin was not genuine.
He refused to give it to me because that would have exposed him earlier than now ‘because I was going to confirm the authenticity of the documents with the Lagos State government
The trap
The prophet according to him also tried to lure him to marry his daughter.
‘He later introduced his daughter urging me to marry her. He was putting pressure on me to travel to the UK to consummate marriage with her.
He even went as far as telling me that I could still come back to Nigeria to marry another woman I want. I guess he was trying to set me up so he could through his daughter get away with the N65.5m.
The Midoil Account
Since the first media report, Timilehin said, Tibetan has not shown any willingness to refund the money.
“He has been going about trying to explain away the issue. At one point, he sent me his account details showing how he transferred money to Akintonde. But I discovered that the account he sent money to is a MidOil company account called Mid-Oil Petrochemical Company which is allegedly partly owned by Akintonde.”
“But since I had no direct dealings with Akintonde, the onus is on him to collect the money back from the woman and pay me. What the woman is saying is that she did not collect money from me, which is true. I paid the money to the account of Prophet Tibetan”
Timilehin expressed the fear that Akintonde might have been instructed to spend the money on something else
“It is clear from what I have seen so far that they are not willing to refund the money except something drastic is done by the authorities. The two of them have traveled out of the country. There is kind of connivance between them to make it impossible for me to get a refund.”
Prophet Tibetan in Ireland
He said Prophet Tibetan has none of his immediate family members in Nigeria making it easy for him to take off whenever there is any attempt to get him. “His wife and children live in Ireland. He is currently outside the country.
“After blocking my lines, he called me from Ireland and said he was no longer in the country. He was the one who also informed me that Mrs. Akintonde was not in the country. He was the one who instructed Akintonde to vacate her office in Alausa since the news broke.”
Timilehin who is presently despondent said apart from the land money, he has evidence “to show how Prophet Tibetan has borrowed money from him several. He is still owing me
“I have suffered so much in the last few months since I began the battle to get my money back. I am not asking for any other thing apart from my money. Let him return my money. Nigerians who know Prophet Tibetan should prevail on him to return my N65.5 million.”
Efforts to get Prophet Tibetan to comment on the issue did not yield any fruit as he could not be reached on Phone. When contacted on phone, Mrs Akintonde said she was not in the country urging our correspondent to call back.
