The Daily Mail published an article on Sunday 21st October 2012, which makes revelations about the Winners’ Chapel movement, which have prompted the Charity Commission to review the charitable status  of the church – one of the fastest-growing in the UK. Winners’ Chapel is part of a worldwide empire of evangelical ministries run by Nigeria’s wealthiest preacher David Oyedepo, who has an estimated £93 million fortune, a fleet of private jets and a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

The article says that branches of the church have sprung up in major UK cities in a huge recruitment drive centred on Mr Oyedepo’s ‘prosperity gospel’. This claims that congregants who make regular donations and pay tithes – a ten per cent levy on their income – will be rewarded financially by God.

The UK daily newspaper makes the following disclosures from its investigations:

• Congregants are handed a payment slip requesting payments using cheque, cash or debit card when they enter London’s Winners’ Chapel.

• Donations to the ministry in England almost doubled from £2.21 million to £4.37 million between 2006 and 2010.

• Mr Oyedepo’s superchurch in Nigeria received £794,000 or 73% of the charitable donations paid out by the British Winners’ Chapel between 2007 and 2010. This was despite claims in Africa that he is enriching himself at the expense of his devotees.

• The registered charity has spent £6.81 million on evangelism and ‘praise, worship and fellowship’.

• The church’s ‘Joseph Squad’ preaches in British prisons and has a weekly broadcast named ‘Liberation Hour’ on satellite and cable TV here.