An investigative journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, has shared how an Islamic cleric, Alfa Ibadan, defrauded him in a bid to cure him of a feigned condition.Soyombo has gone undercover to reveal some of the sharp practices of religious institutions. He has been publishing his reports via the Foundation for Investigative Journalism.
In the latest piece published on Wednesday, Soyombo said that an advance team had gone to the cleric to claim that he was gay and needed fixing.
When he eventually met the cleric at the Oriwu Central Mosque, Ikorodu, Lagos, “Alfa Ibadan says he will “start work right away”. He asks to be paid N40,000, with which he will do some ‘work’ for me. And we will buy a ram, a white one. He says we may buy it ourselves and bring it to him, or we may hand him the responsibility. We choose the latter. He tells us the ram will cost N80,000. Then we will buy sponge, black soap, shea butter, seven yards of white cloth, a sachet of palm oil, some salt and sugar; these will cost N5,000. That’s a total of N125,000.”
Soyombo and a member of this team also followed the Alfa to Ibadan for another round of prayers and discovered that they could have got the same size of ram, he claimed he purchased for N85,000, for N30,000.
