11 occupants escape unhurt as robbers leave bishop’s jeep with 56 bullet holes
By Ayodele Ale
Published: Saturday, 14 Feb 2009

When Bishop Stephen Ogedengbe, founder and head of Evangelical Ministries (Wisdom Chapel), located in Shasha, Lagos, led the congregation on Sunday, February 1, 2008, there was nothing to suggest that danger was lurking in the corner.
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Bishop Ogedengbe

The church service held as usual as the faithful savoured the joy of seeing a new month. Worshippers clapped, sang and danced to the music rendered by the choir. The shout of Hallelujah rented the air as the bishop mounted the pulpit and gave many reasons why the people needed to thank God in spite of the prevailing economic situation.

Not a few were, however surprised when the clergy started raising prayer points against untimely death of church members. “Let us pray against the spirit of death, so that we will not have any cause to be sorrowful in this church,” he commanded. Members stretched their arms and and stamped their legs on the floor as they prayed.

Service, over, the congregation dispersed, leaving the Bishop, members of his immediate family and a few workers in the church premises. At about 2 pm, Ogedengbe, his children and some of his relations numbering 11 people all together, got into his Toyota 4Runner Jeep to go back to his residence on Ojoo Road.

“I would have been in the vehicle with them, but it was one of those days that I needed to stay behind to perform some duties,” said the Bishop’s wife, Peace.

As the engine of the vehicle roared, some visitors arrived the church and the clergyman had to alight from the jeep to attend to them. As he came down, Tosin, his 20-year-old daughter, mounted the driver’s seat, and drove the vehicle out of the compound.

Midway to their home, precisely at Orelope junction, they were attacked by gunmen.

Mrs. Funmilayo Famoju, a relation of the bishop, who sat in front of the vehicle when the incident occurred, said, “They were six in number because I saw them as they were alighting from the okada (commercial motorcycles) that they came with. One of them jumped in front of our vehicle and started shooting to the air.”

Passersby took to their heels while drivers abandoned their vehicles and ran for dear lives.

Scared by the spectacle, Mrs Famoju said she tapped her brother’s daughter who was driving the jeep on the shoulder and shouted, “Robbers! robbers!”

She added that everybody in the vehicle started shivering. “All of us in the car were so afraid that we did not know what to do. I then told them to bow down their heads. You needed to see us. One of the things that surprised us was that they were not covering their faces. They were all young people.”

Before they could gather their thoughts, the gunmen had surrounded the vehicle and started firing at the car. “The glasses at the back of the car are tinted, so the gunmen could not see who was at the back seat,” Bishop Ogedengbe said. “Somehow, my daughter managed to call and inform me that armed robbers had surrounded the car and were shooting. Even on the telephone, I could hear the sound of gunshots. Then the phone went off and I thought he had been shot. We were helpless. We were just praying that God should spare their lives. She later told me that she had to throw away the phone when the robbers aimed at her.

“You know it would have been a terrible thing for a family to lose 11 persons at the same time,” he said.

Curiously, none of the bullets that were fired at the Jeep entered into the car. Famoju said, “When the person doing the firing had exhausted the bullets in the gun, he collected the other one and continued firing.”

At the end of the day, the gunmen resorted to vandalising the front door of the car at the driver’s side only to realise that apart from the girl that was driving it and two other ladies, the remaining eight persons were children. They collected the phones of the the three adults and the other valuables they could lay their hands on.

Meanwhile, information had reached the police at Dopemu Police Station and a team of soldiers that men of the underworld were operating at Orelope Junction. They quickly raced towards the direction.

Ogedengbe said, “I learnt that it was the soldiers that the robbers sighted and took off, using the okadas that they came with. They could not use a car because those who abandoned their cars and ran away had cause serious traffic jam. Policemen from Idimu also arrived the scene some minutes later, but none of the robbers was arrested,” the bishop said.

In company with some members of the church, the bishop raced to the scene and were shocked at what they saw. “Despite the fact that the front door of the vehicle at the passenger’s side was riddled with the bullets, none penetrated the car, not to talk of hitting any of the people inside,” he said. “Though terrified, I met all of them inside and alive. The children were crying. When we counted the bullet holes, they were 56.

“Meanwhile, the news had travelled far and wide that I had been shot dead. People were trying to reach me as we were moving to the scene, but I was praying.

“All the people we met at the scene thought the vehicle was bullet proof, but it was not. I bought it four years ago and since then, I have been using it. It is a car I use most of the time, but I believe that God turned it to bullet proof when it was being attacked,” he said.

The vehicle was later taken to the bishop’s home on LASU-Ojoo Road and has been parked there since then.

When Saturday Punch visited the house of the bishop on Thursday, the car was still marked with the bullet holes which our correspondent counted. While Tosin, the Salem University undergraduate, who drove the car had gone back to school, efforts were being made to repair it.

“The screen cracked because my son, Prophet, hit his head against it,” the bishop’s wife said. Interestingly, the 4-year-old boy who was one of the children in the car was said to have told his parents that he dreamt that armed robbers attacked his mother. “He even said he wanted to pray for us and we did not object.”

But was the Bishop’s car being trailed from the church? Did the armed robbers believe that he had the day’s offerings and tithe with him?

“It is difficult to say,” Ogedengbe said. “No bishop carries church money home. There is a well designed system through which the money gets to the bank. They will be making a great mistake to think that we go home with money. Actually, when they eventually forced the car open, they were asking, ‘where is the money? where is the money?’

“With the way armed robbers are operating, the country is in trouble. That is why the government must act fast and do something reasonable about the economic situation, because a lot of people are losing jobs, positions, shops and so on.”

Though the Police Public Relations Officer in Lagos State, Frank Mba, a Superintendent of Police told Saturday Punch that he had not been informed about the incident, the Divisional Police Officer, Idimu Police Station, Mr. Adeniken Johnson, confirmed the attack and said that his men responded promptly when they received the distress call. ‘Like all other calls, we responded and that is all I want to say,’ he said.

“With the way armed robbers are operating, the country is in trouble. That is why the government must act fast and do something reasonable about the economic situation, because a lot of people are losing jobs, positions, shops and so on.”

Woe unto our political office holders whose annual salary is about half the annual national budget!

11 Occupants in a jeep?

How did they pull that off?

The lord has a plan for these people, 56 bullet holes and no one hurt? I'm convinced.