Here Are 10 Reasons Why Winners Chapel Is ‘Dangerously’ Wealthy

In this new series Voice Of The Church profiles the wealth of Nigerian Christian ministries. The Nigerian Catholic church, RCCG, Christ embassy and Winners chapel hold tremendous amount of wealth which is not unusual considering their extensive international reach.

One of the major strengths of the Nigerian indigenous churches was their ability to proliferate successfully in foreign nations, this particularly ensured that they were immune to Nigerian economic woes as they continue to receive millions of USD and other currencies from their foreign stations. The internationalization of these churches has ensured that Nigerian churches continued to boom in the worst of recession in any country it occupies.

Today we start by profiling one of the most successful Christian ministries founded four decades ago by Bishop Oyedepo.

10 REASONS WHY WINNERS CHAPEL IS DANGEROUSLY WEALTHY

1.  In 2016 Winners Chapel had over #150 billion naira expenditure. Considering Ogun state makes about 75 billion a year on IGR then it is debatable that Winners is wealthier than Ogun state.
CAVEAT: It is unclear whether the total expenditure includes or excludes expenditures of subset organizations of the church e.g universities and secondary schools.

b. It is unclear whether this figure represents the totality of headquarter’s expenditure or merely a summation of individual branch expenditure. If latter is correct then each branch of the winners chapel is spending 25 million naira/annum.

2. Winners Chapel holds about 30 – 40 Billion naira in financial reserves. This is more than a cumulative of Ekiti’s IGR for the next 10 years.

3. The Church has an estimated 12,000 pastors on payroll operating its 6000 church network. In comparison the global total number of clerics in Winners equal the 10,000 United Bank Of Africa (UBA) staff strength.

4. The Church tithes a 10th of her income to another Nigerian church.

5. In 2016 the Church spent 10-12 Billion naira on Educational facilities which included a 5 billion naira Research center, its 22nd Secondary school in Delta worth 700 million naira and a befitting Post Graduate residence for Covenant University.

6. In 2018 the church completed a #1 billion naira stadium in its Canaan-land campus Ota.

7. The church currently holds a federal govt backed licence to build a private airstrip in Ota.

8. The Church’s hangar reportedly can conveniently hold six private jets. However the church maintains one jet for now.

9. In the last decade the church has acquired over 24 villages translating to #8000 hectares to build a new city of 15,000 houses which would be the second biggest in the world.

10. Winners currently pays #300 million/annum to subscribe its universities to global data analytics services, which gives its universities far more edge than other universities in the country.

Comments are welcomed.