N8bn trapped investment: Church members, depositors clash in Jos

Some members of the Jos, Plateau State-based Maranatha Covenant Church, and depositors into a corporative society, yesterday, clashed at the premises of the Federal High Court, shortly after the resumption of the case of alleged fraud levelled against the church leader, Bishop Katung Jonas.

Bishop Katung and two others were docked in the continuation of a case brought before the federal court, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The commission is currently prosecuting the bishop and other persons on a 24-count charge for defrauding about 800 depositors of huge sums of money running into hundreds of millions of naira sometimes in 2012 through a business concern called Covenant Fadama Cooperative Society.
At the resumption of the case, victims of the trapped investment thronged the premises of the court, where they raised placards, and voices calling the bishop uncomplimentary names which irked members of the church who accompanied him, to fight back.
The depositors charged towards Bishop Katung as he left the court building at about 11:35am, chanting demands for the return of their investments, with some hurling insults at him, while others raised the placards they bore to barricade him while he walked towards the gate.
At this point, members of his church advanced forward to shield him, and in the process, engaged the aggrieved depositors in fisticuffs and exchange of insults.
The church members, most of them young women, were however overpowered by the surging number of the protesters, most of them old women, who wailed and advanced towards the bishop. But the bishop escaped their attempted assault, as he was rushed into a car that drove in to break the crowd, while armed policemen assisted.
Meanwhile, the court yesterday, remanded a third accused involved in the case, Mamman Irimia Jatau. He was remanded in prison custody by Justice M.H. Kurya after the EFCC counsel, amended the charges preferred against Bishop Katung and one Okewale Dayo.
Bishop Katung and one Okewale Dayo, chairman and secretary, respectively of the Covenant Fadama Cooperative Society, have been standing trial at the at court over alleged offences including fraud and money laundering as well as swindling depositors of their investment.