Popular Nigerian pentecostal preacher and founder of Living Faith Chapel, David Oyedopo, has said he would lay his bare hands and breathe into any COVID-19 patient brought to him for prayer.
Mr Oyedepo said this during his church’s programme on Saturday.
“Can you imagine anyone bringing a coronavirus patient to me and I won’t lay hands on him? Will I wear gloves to lay hands on them?
“I will lay hands on them; breathe into them; embrace them. What you carry is eternal life, it’s not human life. You should know that,” he said during the broadcast.
As expected, his broadcast message has gone viral and has attracted diverse reactions from his church members and the general public.
But this is not the first time Mr Oyedepo would be courting controversies because of his Covid-19 related statements.
During a sermon on June 28, the cleric claimed his church recorded 114 Covid-19 healing testimonies.
Additionally, he said, Lagos and Ogun states were infected with an anti-church virus and not COVID-19.
He also condemned the closure of churches and other worship centres by Lagos and Ogun States governments.
Criticism
In his latest video, Mr Oydepo lampooned people who wear nose masks and gloves to protect themselves from contracting the virus.
“You’ll now wear everything like a doctor, you have never been to a theatre in your life. You will be moving like somebody is under some attack. Someday, they will know that they have been deceived.
“They will all know that they have been grossly deceived,” he said expressing doubt in the virus and its preventive measures.
”You’ve covered your mouth: do you cover it when you want to eat or there is no coronavirus when you are eating? I just look at it and say, ‘what is all this?”.
He also inferred that the current COVID-19 preventive measures were not of God.
Mr Oyedepo said, “It’s all the devil trying to dehumanise humanity. Don’t go near old people, yet you are buying food from them! Do you ask somebody of her age when you want to buy food: ‘Hello Mama, what’s your age?’ Age of what? Get out, my friend. I am selling something and you’re asking my age.
“COVID-19 cannot be any reason why your own ‘breaking limit’ package will not be delivered. It’s not a tenable reason. No circumstance on earth will make the covenant of God of no effect.
“You can imagine a medical doctor going back there to minister to coronavirus patients (documented testimony). He found something, while others are scared by everything they can see.”
Like Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy Church, Mr Oyedepo has strongly kicked against the federal government’s COVID-19 restrictions which have impacted church attendance.
