‘Give kidnappers my number,’ Bishop Oyedepo tells congregation

David Oyedepo, founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, has urged members of his congregation to hand their phones to kidnappers and connect them directly to him should they ever be abducted, declaring that any captor who fails to release a church member within 24 hours would face death.

The 71-year-old bishop made the remarks during a “Covenant Day of Vengeance Service,” a video of which circulated widely on Friday, as kidnapping continues to pose a severe security challenge across Nigeria, with victims from various religious and social backgrounds frequently held for ransom.

Recounting a past incident involving one of his pastors, Oyedepo said he intervened by phone, warning the abductors directly.

“I said to them that in the next 24 hours, if you don’t take him out, you’re dead. The place was vibrating, on the spot,” he told his congregation.

He maintained that the confrontation was a demonstration of spiritual authority, and extended the same assurance to all members of his church.

“If anybody picks you, give them my number. If he is not cut down, then I’m not sent.”

The Presiding Bishop of Faith Tabernacle in Ota, Ogun State, also recalled a separate incident involving a female member of the church, saying that the mere invocation of his name unsettled her captors even without his direct involvement.

He narrated that the kidnappers began to harm themselves in confusion before eventually releasing the woman.

“They started cutting themselves. Some said ‘she should go.’ Some said she shouldn’t go.

“Not cutting my daughter. They were cutting themselves. They said, please, start going,” he recounted.

Oyedepo added that members of his church possessed the same spiritual authority but needed to recognise and activate it, saying: “You are being raised far above the devil.”

The clergyman last drew public attention in April 2025 when his daughter, Love Ogah, recounted during a sermon what she described as a failed assassination attempt on her father, saying assailants searched their home for hours looking for him.