Fake miracle scandal scatters church in Uyo

A large scale scandal has broken out in a church
known as the City of Truth (a.k.a Holy Ghost
Embassy), Uyo, Akwa Ibom State as the founder and
general overseer of the church, Bishop Israel Usoro,
has been accused by his pastors of engaging in fake
instant healing and false prophecies.
But Bishop Usoro has denied the allegation, claiming
he never knew whether those who claim to have
been instantly healed of their ailments during the
church's tarry nights or similar programmes were
real or pretenders.
Saturday Sun learnt that Usoro, whose church is
situated at No 12, Paul Bassey Street, Uyo, began to
experiment the fake instant healing after a Ghanaian
pastor, one David Amousou came in as a guest
preacher earlier in the year and arranged with some
boys to act as sick people to receive instant cure
after being prayed for.
A letter of resignation written by one of the elders
and former protocol officer of the Church, Mr
Idorenyin Aquaisua, to Bishop Usoro and other key
officials of the church, a copy of which was made
available to Saturday Sun chronicled with dates a
series of fake miracles the bishop had performed by
paying people, sometimes as little as N2000 to come
and pose as if they were mad, blind, infirm or
afflicted by evil spirits.
"It bears recall that I have served God in your Church,
City of Truth Chapel Int'l, for well over seven (7)
years now. Within this period, I stand vindicated
before God, my conscience, and man that I have been
selfless, diligent, truthful, faithful and committed in
my services to God. Since 2006 till date, I have held
very many sensitive positions in the church with
enduring legacies.
"At a time when the Church was almost grounded by
severe moral crisis occasioned by your activities that
generated intense feeling of distrust in your wife, I
was persuaded, out of trust by you and some faithful
members of the church then, to head the Protocol
Unit in your office in 2010 so as to encourage and
give you the needed support to continue your
ministerial duties with minimal distraction,"
Aquaisua wrote.
"I came to know you closely as a prophet who
professed total dependence on God. Therefore, until
certain events unfolded recently, I had no cause to
doubt your prophetic grace. When news first came to
me early June 2013 that the regular instant healing
miracles that were taking place during the Tuesday
Power Night programme in the church were stage-
managed, I almost beat up the person who brought
the news.
"On Tuesday, August 13, 2013, I took an independent
step to verify the stories and this step brought me
face to face with the truth. That evening during the
regular Power Night programme, a clean-shaven
young man dressed in torn T-shirt and dragged along
by another young man was intercepted as they were
about to enter the church and interrogated in the
studio room.
"During interrogation, both the young man and his
accomplice, who earlier claimed that the young man
he was dragging into church was mad, confessed to
me (with Elders Idorenyin Mfon, Effiong Usoro and
Evangelists Anietie Walter and Harrison Eke as
witnesses) that he 'was NOT MAD and that he was
arranged to dress like and to act as a madman in the
church for you to 'deliver' him so as to boost the faith
of members in your anointing and increase the
membership of your church'. They said what they
were doing was a new method of 'evangelism' which
you have since embraced", he further alleged.
But in an interview with Saturday Sun in his church,
Bishop Usoro refuted the allegations of fake or false
instant miracle claiming that they were peddled by
some former officers of the church who are no longer
members of the church.
He likened them to Lucifer who was thrown out of
heaven. "Since then, he can never say any good thing
about heaven."
Usoro denied ever delivering the supposedly mad
man on Tuesday, August 13, 2013, even though he
admitted seeing such a person in church that night.
"I saw two young men and one said the other was
partially mad. I told them to be coming to church
because if I don't see anything about you, I can't heal
you. It is not the work of the flesh. It is only when you
are under the unction of the holy spirit; that you can
do all these things. That's all."
He showed Saturday Sun two other patients, a lady
with goitre and a young man supposed to be
mentally deranged whose conditions he said had
been improving since they were brought by their
relatives to the church
Usoro admitted being invited by the SSS to answer
questions on the fake miracle saga and claimed that
he was acquitted after the security operatives heard
his own side of the story.