Bishop David Oyedepo Launches New Airline -'DOMINION AIR'

Nigeria’s richest pastor and self-styled
bishop, David Oyedepo, has made a
glistening addition to his business
empire by floating an airline called
Dominion Air.
Oyedepo, who a few years ago ignited
debate on flamboyant Christianity by
acquiring his fourth private jet, is the
owner of Dominion Publishing House,
Covenant University and an elite
secondary school called Faith Academy.
Listed by Forbes as Nigeria’s wealthiest
pastor with a net worth of $150 million,
David Oyedepo is a preacher and
founder of Living Faith Church
Worldwide, more popularly known as
Winners’ Chapel. Besides his four private
jets, Forbes also mentioned the
preacher’s luxury homes in London and
the United States.
Sources within the Corporate Affairs
Commission (CAC), the agency charged
with business registration in Nigeria,
confirmed the registration of Dominion
Air with David Oyedepo as its chairman.
Another source within a Lagos-based
insurance firm known to handle most
of Oyedepo’s businesses said the airline
project had been in the works for six
years and was only made a reality this
year.
The broker who balked at putting
figures to the number of aircrafts so far
purchased authoritatively said none of
them is on lease.
If Oyedepo’s entry into the airline
business is creating exciting buzz in
Nigeria’s stock exchange, the same
cannot be said with the Christian
community, especially the Pentecostal
congregations, where the so-called men
of God have been criticised for
alienating their poor followers with
their flamboyant lifestyle.
Money laundering
According to Lawrence Ofili, a member
of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), the
social movement that staged days of
protest over this year’s controversial
fuel price hike, Nigerian pastors are
increasingly acting like politicians who
put themselves first before the people.
“Pastor Oyedepo by his choice of
businesses has severally demonstrated
a disconnect between himself and
hundreds of thousands of poor
Christians who he claimed to have come
to deliver. About 90 per cent of public
schools in this country were built by
early Christian missionaries; today
Oyedepo has Covenant University but it
is for children of millionaires,” says Mr
Ofili.
“Even with the high school called Faith
Academy, I am aware that most children
in his congregation dream to be
educated there but their parents who
probably pay tithes and offerings
cannot afford the school fees. His Faith
Tabernacle accommodates 50,000
worshippers every Sunday; how many
of them are going to fly Dominion Air?
Honestly this project is not for the poor.
He should have settled for mechanised
farming to engage unemployed men
and women.”