From TONY JOHN, Port Harcourt
Dozens of victims of MBA forex trading in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, have picketed the Christ Embassy Church, in Odili Road, Port Harcourt, alleging  three of its pastors defrauded them billions of naira.
The aggrieved protesters, who were displayed placards with different inscriptions, said they chose to stage the protest on Sunday, because the persons that defrauded were members of the church.
The demonstrators stressed that, since 2020 when they noticed that they had been defrauded, the victims have suffered agony, pains and hopelessness, which have led to the untimely deaths of their members.
Leader of the group, Christian Agadaga, expressed: “Well, as a leader of this struggle, victims of MBA forex trading, we have assembled at Christ Embassy Church today to register our displeasure to say exactly how we feel, our pains and agony, our calamities because of just one man, Maxwell, who defrauded Nigerians to the tune of N213 billion.
“While we were trying to recover from the shock for over two years now, just recently, the Economic and Finance Crimes Commission (EFCC) has declared three persons wanted. From our intelligence, these three persons are pastors and workers of this church.
“We are so disappointed, and we have come here to let the leadership of the church know our pains. We want to use this opportunity to appeal to Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, he is a man that dies not tolerate evil, to immediately report these his pastors who are hiding to the EFCC.
“We cannot take it anymore. Some of our colleagues have died; some  as a result of this problem. Some were hospital; those of us alive cannot face tomorrow. Some are homeless, jobless as a result of this church.
“We are asking, the monies that have been siphoned by these pastors, they should be returned to the EFCC. We cannot tolerate this anymore. We cannot continue this way. We must collect  our money back.
“As Nigerians, we cannot continue to die in silence. Nigeria cannot continue to suffer and die in poverty because of fraud meted by so-called men of God. We cannot take it any longer. We need our money now.”
Secretary of the cluster of MBA victims, Uzor Paul, said that they staged a peaceful protest at the church because they believed the founder of the church (Chris Oyakhilome) would not condone such fraudulent act.
He, however, urged the General Overseer of the church to carry out an independent investigation to ascertain if the protesters’ allegation was baseless.
“The pastor is a very gentleman and we do not think that he would support this kind of thing. Let him do his independent investigation. Let him humbly and decently as a man of God he is, do his investigation, to see if this thing these people are saying is real.
“Most of us invested hundreds and thousands of million. We cannot let this go. If he finds out that this money that was collected in his church, in billions, was a proceed of fraud, he should return it to show that he is a decent man of God. We cannot let this go. That’s why we came here. Hence, Maxwell has a good connection with the church and is a member of the church and he used it as an umbrella body to defraud the victims. He should return the money to the investors.”
They called on EFCC to, within 21 days, track down  the fleeing accused pastors and recover their “stolen” money.