Bishop David Oyedepo
A mild drama, Thursday, played out at the Lagos office of the Embassy of the United States as the founder of Faith Tabernacle in Ota, Ogun State and Living Faith Church Worldwide, otherwise known as Winners’ Chapel International, Bishop David Oyedepo was denied a visa.
But an ace comedian, Abovi Ugboma, popularly known as Bovi was lucky with the embassy as he was issued the visa.
However, his wife, Kris Asimonye, was not as lucky as she was denied the travelling document.
THISDAY gathered that the embassy did not give any other reason except the standard default explanation that the Bishop did not qualify for visa renewal in its assessment and urged him to try again.
Hell was, however, let loose, when the obviously flustered preacher and businessman, created a scene whilst querying the grounds for his refusal.
An insider said he told the embassy he had been travelling to the states as far back as the 1980s and had not violated any rules or committed any crime to have warranted being denied a renewal of his visa.
According to the source, he immediately sent for his bodyguards to get his phones so he could make some calls, but the embassy allegedly told him he could not make calls within the precincts of the visa-issuing section of the embassy.
When THISDAY contacted the embassy for clarifications on why the popular Bishop was denied visa, a staff of the embassy in the media department, requested that an email be sent with the questions and promised to respond as soon as possible.
Curiously, the embassy, believed to be swift to respond to emails, neither acknowledged nor responded to the email sent since 5.05 p.m. yesterday till the newspaper went to bed.
Embassy sources however hinted at the possibility that the popular preacher might have made some calls to individuals that would intervene on his behalf and the visa was eventually issued.
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