Spiritual Blackmail: Power Minister Adelabu petitions DSS over Primate Ayodele’s attempt to extort N150m for 2027 guber support
The Minister of Power, Bayo Adelabu, has petitioned the Department of State Services (DSS), accusing Primate Elijah Ayodele of attempting to extort N150 million from him under the guise of “spiritual support” for his 2027 governorship ambition.
The minister alleged that the founder of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church demanded huge sums and expensive ritual items in exchange for divine intervention.
The petition, dated 13 October 2025 and signed by his aide, Bolaji Tunji, claimed the cleric turned against him after he refused the requests.
According to the petition, Primate Ayodele reportedly instructed Adelabu to provide 24 APC flags and 1,000 saxophones or trumpets.
Text messages seen by TheCable show the items were valued between N50 million for the cheapest Nigerian grade and N130 million for imported Chinese grade-one instruments. The deadline was first set for 1 April and later shifted to 4 April.
Ayodele allegedly said the demands were “instructions from God” and urged Adelabu to carry out prayers, vigils, and rituals that would guarantee victory at the polls. Adelabu is said to have told the cleric that he could not afford the items.
Following his refusal, the cleric reportedly declared during a church service that Adelabu would not become Oyo governor, describing his pronouncements as divine warnings. He also invited the minister to challenge him legally.
The minister’s petition frames the encounter as spiritual blackmail and an attempt to influence a political process through financial and ritual pressure.
The minister asked the DSS to investigate Ayodele and compel him to retract his “false prophecies” and apologise.
“I write to formally draw the attention of the Department of State Services (DSS) to the extortive, deceitful, and inciting activities of one self-acclaimed pastor known as Primate Elijah Ayodele, of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, whose actions have become not only personally distressing to the Honourable Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, but also capable of disturbing public peace and undermining the integrity of the political process in Oyo State,” the petition reads.
“Since his tenure as the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and particularly in the period leading up to his current aspiration to serve as the Governor of Oyo State, this individual had persistently approached him with unsolicited offers of “spiritual intercession” purportedly to guarantee electoral success.
“Under this guise, he had on several occasions demanded huge sums of money and expensive spiritual items, cumulatively amounting to over N150 million (one hundred and fifty million naira), as purported prerequisites for divine favour. The minister had consistently declined his requests, believing that his political ambition is driven by genuine service to the people and not by any spiritual manipulation or fetish practice.
“Following the Honourable Minister’s refusal to accede to his extortionate demands, Primate Ayodele has embarked on a campaign of malicious and false prophecies targeted at discrediting him publicly. He has gone as far as declaring through various media channels that ‘God told him he will not win the election’ and has recently made more provocative and inciting statements suggesting that he would fail because of his association with the ‘Èmi Lòkan’ slogan (“It’s my turn”).
“As a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he had previously chosen to ignore his antics to avoid unnecessary public confrontation with a religious figure. However, Primate Ayodele’s continued propagation of these false prophecies, which are evidently retaliatory and malicious in nature, now pose a threat not only to the minister’s reputation but also to public order and confidence in the democratic process.
“I therefore urge the Department of State Services to kindly investigate the activities of the said Pastor Ayodele for extortion, blackmail, and deliberate dissemination of false and inciting information; compel him to retract his false prophecies and issue a formal written apology; and bring him under the force of the law, in accordance with relevant provisions of the Nigerian Constitution and Criminal Code, to deter similar fraudulent religious practices in the future.”
The minister also petitioned the Oyo state commissioner of police over the cleric’s “extortive and inciting activities”.
However, in a statement signed by his media aide, Osho Oluwatosin, Primate Ayodele denied ever attempting to extort the minister of the said amount, explaining that he never asked him to send money to him apart from getting the trumpets, which was for the minister’s good.
“I didn’t ask Bayo Adelabu to bring money for prayers, I told him to ask someone from his end to go to the market and find out how much the said trumpet cost, while someone follows them from my end too. His personal assistant, himself, and the person he sent to me put me under so much pressure because he was desperate for governorship.”
“He was the one who sent someone to me to talk to me on his behalf. He went as far as saying he was willing to give anything to become the next governor of Oyo State, and the only thing I told him is to get the trumpets for his own good.”
Adelabu, who served as a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and was the 2019 governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) before defecting to the Accord Party in 2023, is expected to contest against a new candidate as Governor Seyi Makinde won’t be contesting again, having exhausted his 8-year maximum term in office.
