30th June, 2010
The publisher of controversial End-Time Journal, Dr. David Lucas, has been arraigned before an Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court on a two-count charge of conspiracy and defamation.
Lucas was said to have conspired to publish a defamatory story against Apostle Paul Taiwo Adenuga, the General Overseer of Faith Revival Apostolic Church, Idimu.
The defamatory matter, it was alleged, embarrassed Apostle Adenuga and members of the church.
The arraignment of Lucas followed his arrest by the police at Idimu.
He, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge and Magistrate S. O. Solebo granted him bail in the sum of N100,000 with one surety.
The matter was adjourned till 14 July, 2010 for further hearing.
Lucas, in a chat with P.M.NEWS, said the case was about an interview granted him by an individual. The interview was said to have discredited Apostle Adenuga.
He insisted that he would not apologise over the story.
But Adenuga was elated that Lucas was arrested by the police, saying that most of the stories published in the End Time Journal were lies motivated by mischief.
“I suspect that some people must be behind the publication to tear Christendom apart. They are doing this to make Christians who are not strong in the faith to backslide,†he said.
Stories published by the End Time Journal had for some time been causing crisis in Christendom.
One of them was a story in which a woman, Erelu Obada, a converted occultic woman, claimed that she gave power to some clerics like Bishop David Oyedepo of the Living Faith Church (Winners’ Chapel) and Yinka Ayefele, a popular artiste.
The journal, in of its editions, also defamed the General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye.
—Paul Dada & Cyriacus Izuekwe