Photo: odditycentral.com
One Christian pastor from Nigeria has the perfect excuse for stealing an SUV from a dealership under the pretense that he wanted to buy it and then selling it for half the price: the devil and his own parishioners made him do it.
Jeremiah Ehinder, 41, is was a pastor of the Jesus Miracle Church in Ogun State, Nigeria, until his recent arrest, local publication the Daily Post notes. One day, he went to a local car dealership and claimed to want to buy a Toyota Highlander for evangelical purposes, and negotiated a price of about $3,300 for the SUV.
Like any solid car buyer, he asked if he could take the car for a test drive, which staff happily agreed to. After all, what’s the worst you can expect if you let a man of the cloth take one of your cars for a drive?
Apparently, the answer to that is to have it stolen. After 24 hours, the dealership owner called the police because the pastor still hadn’t returned the vehicle. Cops were able to track it down relatively easily and arrested 3 other men in connection to the car theft.
It turns out that the pastor had already sold the SUV to a parts dealer, for half the amount he claimed to want to pay the original dealer for it. Police took him in, along with the parts dealer and 2 other men who had brokered the transaction. The parts dealer’s defense is, as of right now, that he had no idea that the SUV was stolen or else he would have never bought it, God forbid.
As for the pastor, he says he was led into temptation by the devil himself. His parishioner played a part as well, because they wouldn’t come forward with donations as he had expected them to.
“I decided to steal the SUV to sell and use the proceeds to repay the [$1,700] loan I borrowed from a microfinance bank in Lagos. I borrowed [the money] from a microfinance bank to renovate my church, with the hope to recover the investment from tithes and offerings, but I was surprised that for three months, no money was realized to repay the loan,” the pastor told the police.
“When the pressure from the microfinance bank became unbearable for me, the devil told me to steal a vehicle from the car dealer to sell and use the proceeds to repay the loan. I regret my action,” Ehindero added.
Regret can only do so much for him at this point.
Like any solid car buyer, he asked if he could take the car for a test drive, which staff happily agreed to. After all, what’s the worst you can expect if you let a man of the cloth take one of your cars for a drive?
Apparently, the answer to that is to have it stolen. After 24 hours, the dealership owner called the police because the pastor still hadn’t returned the vehicle. Cops were able to track it down relatively easily and arrested 3 other men in connection to the car theft.
It turns out that the pastor had already sold the SUV to a parts dealer, for half the amount he claimed to want to pay the original dealer for it. Police took him in, along with the parts dealer and 2 other men who had brokered the transaction. The parts dealer’s defense is, as of right now, that he had no idea that the SUV was stolen or else he would have never bought it, God forbid.
As for the pastor, he says he was led into temptation by the devil himself. His parishioner played a part as well, because they wouldn’t come forward with donations as he had expected them to.
“I decided to steal the SUV to sell and use the proceeds to repay the [$1,700] loan I borrowed from a microfinance bank in Lagos. I borrowed [the money] from a microfinance bank to renovate my church, with the hope to recover the investment from tithes and offerings, but I was surprised that for three months, no money was realized to repay the loan,” the pastor told the police.
“When the pressure from the microfinance bank became unbearable for me, the devil told me to steal a vehicle from the car dealer to sell and use the proceeds to repay the loan. I regret my action,” Ehindero added.
Regret can only do so much for him at this point.
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