The relationship between Prophet Gabriel Ademola Amusan, the General Overseer of Agbala Gabriel Church located at Egbeda Area of Ibadan, capital of Oyo State, who is in his 30s, and a 40-year-old abject poverty-ridden phone accessories seller, Muideen Dauda started on Friday, May 12, 2023, almost a year ago. When the prophet, popularly known as Agbala Gabriel, a social media influencer and a land seller, who is widely known for his philanthropist calling sighted Muideen nicknamed “Obama” on the expressway selling phone accessories, he was touched and poised to change his situation. Consequently, he called him for a chat and demanded to know the reason behind his poverty.
Responding to this stranger in his exotic car, Muideen linked his problem to his mother, whom he accused of divorcing his father and abandoning him and his other three brothers to their poor father. Stressing that the decision of her mother to be out of their lives when most needed was responsible for his bad condition, Muideen, a coil repairer, also known as “Omo Eyo” at Agugu, his residential area in Ibadan at the time, told the prophet that he was mentally sound, though, looking dirty and tattered: “I am 100 per cent mentally perfect. As you are speaking with me, I am so smart to the extent that I can sell you, to let you know how mentally sound I am. Now that I am in this condition, what will I do? I will not steal. I have to do something that can bring money for me to eat. After all, I will not steal.”
In his determination to help him, the cleric, who eventually turned into Muideen’s angel and mentor, gave him N1000 as transport fare to his church the following Sunday. Muideen initially rejected the money because he would not want to be looked down on and discriminatively treated because of his condition, telling the prophet, “I drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes. I will try to be neat when I come but hope you will not say that I smell of alcohol and cigarettes.” Upon being assured that he would be accepted as he was, he promised the prophet to be his guest in the church the following Sunday.
However, those who watched the video clip of the first meeting and interaction of the duo pressurised the prophet to immediately bring Muideen to the church. This made the prophet go in search of Muideen the following day, and upon finding him on the expressway at the same spot, brought him to church in his car. Fielding questions from the prophet, Muideen explained why he was single, saying that a struggling man, or a jobless man as well as a man in his present situation should not think of a wife, adding that his situation could not let him be sexually moved even if he sees women’s nakedness. He also explained that he took to heavy drinking to enable him to sleep since he could not sleep without drinking heavily. When asked what he needed to transform his life, he demanded N150,000 as capital outlay for his business. However, instantaneously, the prophet raised over a million naira for him from his fans at home and abroad, with a promise to get him a good shop that would be well stocked with phone accessories for sale, and a good house to live in, among other things.
The cleric fulfilled his promises to Muideen, as he got him a well-stocked shop very close to his church, got him artificial teeth to replace two of his front teeth that had been removed, built a beautiful and well-furnished flat for him, and organised a relatively elaborate wedding ceremony for him and his wife, Ibukun.
While enjoying his newly found comfortable life, suddenly, events that aborted the cordial and friendly relationship between him and the prophet were unveiled, leading to Muideen running away from his house, which the prophet raised money to build for him, and leaving his wife behind. Out of frustration, Muideen went to Bodija Market and took up the loads-carrying job. While engaging in this low-life business, a woman recognised him and demanded a justification for his new job after Prophet Amusan had provided him with a dignifying job and basic things of life. In his response, he accused the prophet of making him and destroying him as well. He alleged that the prophet was a selfish individual, who would not want people around him to make him, claiming that the prophet had snatched his wife, and taken over his house “Agbala Gabriel has snatched my wife. He has also seized my house from me. The documents of the house he raised money to build for me are with him. All the donations he received for me is with him, and he did not give me a dime,” Muideen told his interviewers in Bodija Market.
In a bid to resolve the crisis, a popular Ibadan broadcaster and owner of an Ibadan-based radio station, Oriyomi Hamzat intervened and invited the prophet and Muideen for a live show. Hamzat noted that Prophet Gabriel received serious condemnation regarding the way he treated Muideen and that Nigerians wanted legal and financial help for Muideen. He said, “I can’t fold my hands regarding legal help for Muideen. That Prophet Gabriel helped Muideen by taking him off the street and pulling him out of poverty did not justify beating and assaulting him.”
Speaking during the live reconciliation show Hamzat initiated, Muideen stated, “I am physically fine. The reason why I was tired of staying with Agbala Gabriel or in his vicinity is that, first, he beats me. Secondly, he blames me for every misunderstanding between my wife and me. He only listened to my wife’s complaints to judge me. He sides my wife against me. Whatever she tells him is gospel truth and he will use it to melt out punishment to me. He beats me so much that blood will be coming out of my body. Though, he tried for me because it is not easy to take one out of poverty. It is a great work and I appreciate it. Thank you, greatly. Those who have donated to me through Agbala Gabriel to build a house for Muideen; to get shop for Muideen, I thank them. Once you have given out a goat, don’t hold on to the rope that is used to tie the animal. Learn to let go. I want Alagba Gabriel to grant me freedom and allow me to go. He has tried already, he should let me go. He should give me what rightly belongs to me.”
He explained further on why he left his house, “What made me leave the house is that my wife usually reports me to him that I am harsh on her at home and in the shop. Consequently, the prophet collected the keys to my shop and house and handed them over to my wife to control. That is the beginning of the problem. Tuesday evening, I left the prophet’s office and told him that I wanted to go to the toilet. When I got to the back of my house, I fell on the steps and sustained injury to my leg. I could not rise and I had to crawl into the house. From that moment, I could not walk very well. I did not have money to buy drugs. Since she is in charge of my business, I asked her to give me N1000 to use to buy drugs, my wife would say there was no money. I did not want her to go and complain about me to Daddy. So, I was begging for money from other people to buy drugs. Three days ago, I bought bread and peanuts on credit and ate them. I took my drug which somebody borrowed me to buy and I slept off. I woke up in the afternoon and went to take my bath. As I was bathing, Daddy Odun passed through my widow and said is this not Muideen who reported that he was not at home. He called me and said that so you are at home. I said yes and explained that I was sleeping. He said come, Daddy (prophet) wants to see you. Immediately I finished bathing, I went to the prophet. It was the security that first challenged me as to why did I not open the door for my wife when she was knocking on the door. I repeated what I told Daddy Odun that I slept and I just woke up and that I did not hear anybody knocking on the door. I did not say more than that. The security started beating me.”
“When Daddy came out, I explained to him too. Prophet said I was lying. Prophet collected the horsewhip and started beating me mercilessly. He beat me so badly that every part of my back was torn and blood was coming out. Why would I have to be beaten like that when I did not steal anything? After that, I asked my wife to give me food but she said she did not have money. She said she wanted to go and buy fuel to put in the generator which she would put on to charge people’s phones so that she could make money from the service to the people. I thought it within myself that I had not eaten and you said that you wanted to use the money with you to buy fuel. This was the same thing she did some time ago when she used the N10,000 that was with her to pack load when I did not have N1000 to buy drugs. I did not say anything. I went back to the bathroom and after bathing, the spirit told me that daily beating could lead to death. May God forbid that. I said it was better to run away before the prophet killed me with a beating. That was how I left. They have not been allowing me to go out.”
“My wife reported me to the prophet that I was gambling and I was summoned. I confessed that I had been doing it before the prophet took me out of the street. When I make money, I will use it to buy wares in my shop. Then Daddy told me that betting is bad and that I should stop it. I stopped it immediately. What I noticed is that my wife does not believe me. This is why she kept complaining that I was betting and she later extended the complaint to Mummy GO, the wife of Prophet Gabriel. I told the prophet that I had stopped betting. My wife monitors me. I beg, Pastor Gabriel, please in the name of God. I don’t want to die. Please release me and allow me to use my life the way I want”, he concluded.
In an organised video made very early in the morning at the residence of Prophet Gabriel, with Prophet Gabriel and his crew and some of his church members, Bukunmi did not see anything wrong in the prophet beating her husband, Muideen, for the alleged wrongs. Bukunmi narrated her side of the story, “He usually wakes up very early in the morning to go to Egbeda to play Baba Ijebu (bet). I am the wife of Muideen, I suddenly saw a video where my husband was carrying a big bowl in Bodija Market. I wondered what happened. He wasn’t patient. He was not attending to the customers nicely. As early as 6 am, he would have gone to gamble. I was so scared. In the morning, he would say he is going to shop, but whenever I get to shop I will not see him there. I had to report him to our father, Prophet Gabriel that this is what my husband is doing. Then Daddy ordered him to stop going to the shop or leaving the compound and that he should be coming to his office and I should take over the management of our shop. He asked him to join the protocols and whenever they return from an outing, he should stay in the office. The prophet pays him N10,000 weekly apart from the money we realised from the shop, which I will deliver to him. Still, he was not pleased. Yesterday, he asked me to fetch water and put it in the bathroom that he wanted to bath. I asked him if he would not be following Daddy out and he said he was not feeling fine. Since yesterday, I have been looking for him. He claimed in the video he made in Bodija Market that Daddy had taken over his house. It is a lie. Daddy did not take his house. Our house is intact. I slept there and I just woke up from there. All that he said are lies. He is an ingrate and inpatient. He is lousy. I have been enduring since I married him. If I were to be another woman, I would have left. He is stubborn. I don’t know what he wants. Prophet Gabriel is taking care of us. He gives us food and looks after us.”
Also explaining his side of the story, Prophet Gabriel said that he was surprised that despite working, Muideen was finding it difficult to provide for his house, adding that many times, the couple complained of not having food at home. Corroborating Muideen’s wife that he established a small-scale business of selling vehicle oil, the prophet said, “Muideen will wake up by 6 am and go to Egbeda to play bet. As a punishment to discourage him from beting, I made him undergo a week of dry fasting. I did not allow the boys to beat him at that point and after the punishment, he promised not to go for betting again but he didn’t stop. Apart from this, he regularly fights his wife because she is reporting his misdeeds to me. Consequently, I ordered him to relinquish the shop to his wife to manage. He was not happy with this. And I stop him from going out again. I now make him work in my office and pay him N10,000 weekly. This brought a significant change to his life and he became cleaner and neat.”
Prophet Gabriel explained why he mercilessly beat him stating, “At a point, he stopped reporting to my office where he was working. I learnt he was sick on Tuesday, the reason he didn’t come to work. But he was not sick to go to Egbeda to continue engaging in his betting. On Sunday, he didn’t come to church. I sent for him. That was when I was told that he did not open the door for his wife. I was very angry, I took a horsewhip and beat him. I didn’t know that the security had beat him earlier that day.”
The cleric eventually granted the wish of Muideen by first handing over the documents of the house he raised money to build for him, and setting him free from working for him and coming to his church.
However, reactions have been trailing the issue locally and internationally on social media as critics are sharply divided. Those who condemned Prophet Gabriel noted that his good Samaritan ideology is selfishly guided and tilts towards benefits from his philanthropist gesture. It was argued that Prophet Gabriel premeditatedly opted to use Muideen for more popularity on social media, and used him to raise funds of which he would also have his share from it.
A social media influencer popularly known as Oba Solomon holds that Muideen was more helpful to Prophet Gabriel than the latter was to him. He said, “Muideen helped Prophet Gabriel more than Prophet Gabriel helped Muideen. Muideen boosted Prophet Gabriel’s popularity. Prophet Gabriel used Muideen for business. He raised money for him out of which he used to buy a piece of land for him from the large acres of land he was selling. It is Muideen who helped Prophet Gabriel, Prophet Gabriel did not help Muideen. He used Muideen to market his acres of land for sale. Instead of Prophet Gabriel opening an account for Muideen and allowing people to send their donations there for accountability, he was using his bank account to collect money on behalf of Muideen. After he has raised money for Muideen to build a house, he ought to first ask him if he wanted the house to be built in the vicinity of the church or somewhere else. Prophet Gabriel did not disclose the amount he raised for Muideen. Again, after building the house, why did he not hand over the documents of the house to Muideen? If I handle the case, Prophet Gabriel will go to jail.”
Speaking in the direction of Oba Solomon, Lizzy Anjorin, a Nigerian female actor and movie producer, advocated for the arrest of the cleric, his arraignment and if found guilty, he should be jailed. She said, “Prophet Gabriel will be arrested and he will go to prison. He is guilty. His church will scatter. Agbala Gabriel is going down and nobody can stop it.”
A Nigerian in the diaspora, who identified himself as Olugbedu condemned Agbala Gabriel for assaulting and violating the fundamental human rights of Muideen. He said, “There is madness everywhere in Nigeria. How can Prophet Gabriel beat somebody older than him? Why did he drive Muideen away from his shop and hand the shop over to Muideen’s wife? It is wrong for the cleric to have stripped Muideen of the economic power and handed it over to the wife. Can he accept such a thing?”
On the other hand, those who supported Prophet Gabriel described Muideen as an ingrate and mentally unstable, pointing out that he would eventually regret how he treated his destiny helper. Among the cleric’s supporters is Adedoyin Ismail. Ismail commended Bukunmi, Muideen’s wife for refusing to move out of the house the cleric built for her husband.
Mr Kehinde, known as a dealer living abroad, who donated one cow for the wedding of Muideen and Bukunmi and gave a piece of land to actor Otolo, confirmed all the allegations made against Muideen, particularly, as a very aggressive person at home, adding that he beats his wife and gambles. In a podcast interview, Kehinde, who aborted his plan to take the couple out of the country said, “To be honest, about two months ago when I visited Ibadan, I witnessed lots of arguments between Muideen and his wife that Pastor Gabriel and I settled. Muideen usually beat his wife. He was physically aggressive to his wife and he is hyper aggressive. He has a mental disorder that needs treatment. He plays bet. The wife is the one managing the shop. Pastor Gabriel did not allow Muideen to manage the shop. The reason is that he spends proceeds from his shop to play bet. I thought his wife was pregnant but I later learnt that she has fibroid. I was part of a meeting in Agbala Gabriel where I warned him and the wife and asked the wife to call me whenever Muideen misbehaved. They have my number. I told them to report any issue that they can’t report to Prophet Gabriel. I was processing their travelling so that they could come and work for me abroad. I told Muideen that if he refused to stop beating his wife, I would stop processing his travelling because I couldn’t bring him abroad and he would be beating his wife here. That will get me into trouble and will make the police arrest all of us. I let him understand that if he beat his wife again, there would be discipline and he complied at that moment. The couple begged me and Prophet Gabriel also begged me on their behalf. I have noticed lots of unfaithfulness in him. In my presence, many people fought him because they gave him money to charge their phones and he did not do it and he did not return their phones. If he is given a job, he would collect money and not do it. I believe he is still taking alcohol. He needs treatment. I believe Muideen is working with those who want to tarnish the image of the Prophet.”
Another school of thought opined that Prophet Gabriel had deviated from the calling of God, saying that he should be more concerned with spreading the gospel than pursuing worldly materials. Among those who shared this philosophy is Hajia Falilat Oyalowo, who postulated that Prophet Gabriel was divinely called but he has deviated from the work God gave him. She said the clergyman opted to help Muideen to use him to make money from unsuspected Nigerians at home and abroad.
A man who identified himself as Baba Saidu, among others said that Prophet Gabriel had a misplacement of priority on Muideen, saying that rather than exposing Muideen to Jesus Christ, he was acquiring material wealth for him. He questioned the clergyman, “Did you lead Muideen to Jesus Christ? Did you show him Jesus Christ? Does he understand who Jesus Christ is? Worldly things are irrelevant but winning people for Christ is what matters. You did well by bringing him into the Christian’s fold and removing him from poverty but you did not deliver him from his spiritual problem.”
Interestingly, there is a twist to the whole saga, as less than 24 hours after Muideen left Agbala Gabriel he opened a TikTok account, currently having almost 8000 followers and started releasing videos. The first video he released was where he was dancing freedom dance. Speaking in the video, he thanked his mentor for the numerous things he did for him. Subsequently, he released another video where he claimed to expose Prophet Gabriel at the appointed time. He accused Prophet Gabriel as a fraudster, stressing that some of his activities revolved around state economic saboteur. In one of his videos, Muideen said, “Prophet Gabriel want to kill me. People should help me and make sure that he does not succeed in this assignment”, adding that it is difficult for the poor to fight the rich.
Conversely, this gives birth to another school of thought who feels that some people are using Muideen to destroy Prophet Gabriel. It is claimed that those who are using him provided accommodation for him immediately after he left the cleric and opened TikTok for him, among other things.
