A prosecution witness has told a Federal High Court in Jos, Plateau State, that Bishop Katung Jonas exploited his position in the church and religious sermons to deceive him, his wife, and more than 44,000 other Nigerians into putting money into a dubious cooperative scheme that ultimately led to a loss of over N178 million.
Sulaiman Kwalla, the first prosecution witness (PW1), testified before Justice Sharon T. Ishaya on Tuesday. He stated that both he and his wife were misled into investing in the Covenant Fadama Multi-purpose Cooperative Society due to the trust they had in Bishop Jonas’ religious standing and the influence of his widely broadcasted sermons.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Bishop Jonas and Okewole Dayo, who served as the chairman and secretary of the cooperative respectively, on a 23-count charge bordering on obtaining money under false pretenses, amounting to N178,885,000.
While being led in evidence by EFCC’s legal representative, Ibrahim Buba, Kwalla explained that he personally invested N200,000 and also contributed N100,000 on behalf of his wife, Halima Ibrahim Danyaro. Their decision was influenced by promotional content aired on Plateau Radio Television Corporation (PRTV), which regularly featured Bishop Jonas’ sermons.
“I believed the investment was legitimate because of the Bishop’s reputation and the promise of a 10 percent return every month,” Kwalla testified.
He said he was instructed to pay the money into an account at Dadin Kowa Microfinance Bank, which was allegedly affiliated with the cooperative. According to him, he received official receipts after making both payments.
However, things quickly turned sour. By the end of the first month, Kwalla said neither he, his wife, nor any of the other investors received the promised returns. He visited the cooperative’s office on Secretariat Road in Jos and found it packed with other disgruntled investors.
He recounted that on June 4, 2012, a large crowd gathered at the same office demanding their money back. The situation became tense, and security operatives had to escort Dayo, the second defendant, to safety. Dayo was later arrested and detained at the Plateau State Police Headquarters.
Kwalla told the court that a meeting involving the police, the aggrieved investors, and Bishop Katung was held soon after. During the meeting, the Bishop acknowledged being the cooperative’s chairman and proposed a repayment plan that was supposed to start in July 2012. However, the plan was never implemented.
“Each time we asked for updates, we got a new excuse. Eventually, Bishop Katung claimed that a firm called Lanre Global Concept would help us recover our money from overseas,” Kwalla testified.
He said they rejected the offer because the investors had no previous dealings with the company. The Bishop then presented a new investment initiative, Global View, where he confessed to having diverted the cooperative’s funds into forex trading. Kwalla said this too proved to be fraudulent.
He further told the court that following numerous failed attempts to retrieve their investments, the victims, through their legal representative, Solomon Dalung, submitted a petition to the EFCC. The petition alleged that over N8 billion had been fraudulently obtained from at least 44,000 individuals.
Kwalla added that while he was fortunate enough to recover his own N200,000 through an official of the cooperative, his wife’s N100,000 investment remains unreturned, held by Bishop Jonas and his associate.
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