Bishop of the United Methodist Church of Nigeria (UMCN), Rev. Ande Emmanuel
Bishop of the United Methodist Church of Nigeria (UMCN), Rev. Ande Emmanuel, has alleged that the emergence of the Global Methodist Church of Nigeria (GMCN) was triggered by financial irregularities involving over N4 billion and a missing church aircraft, rather than disagreements over same-sex marriage.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with NATIONAL ACCORD correspondent at his office in Jalingo, Bishop Emmanuel accused former UMCN leader John Wesley Yohanna of deliberately creating a new denomination to distract attention from alleged mismanagement of church resources.
He said the funds and aircraft were meant for church development but could not be accounted for.
According to Emmanuel, the crisis deepened after Yohanna resigned on July 8, 2024, and allegedly failed to hand over church properties. He maintained that the situation later led to the temporary closure of UMCN and GMCN activities across the state, forcing the church to seek legal redress.
He said: “When he resigned and issued a press statement that he has left the UMCN to the GMCN, that was the beginning of the crisis in the church, it’s resulted to government closure of both the UMCN and GMCN across the state
“The council of UMCN then instructed him to handover all the properties of the church to the next Bishop, as at the time, there was no substantive Bishop, he was instructed to handover to the interim Bishop, after sometimes, an indigenous Bishop was ordained and we insisted that he must handover the properties to him.
“He didn’t handover up till now, that’s why we as law abiding citizens we decided to approach the court of law instead of engaging him violently, there are whole lot of misappropriation that happens with the former Bishop, let me tell you that most of the crisis you see between UMCN and GMCN today is not about Homosexuality or Same Sex Marriage as they portray, of is about same sex, it is one year six months since we returned from Chalot where we did our worldwide regionalization where they accused us of bringing same sex to Nigeria, tell where even a single gay marriage or engagement has happened in our church?.
“These persons have ruined this church financially, syphoned the money of the church, bring another church and try to bury UMCN because they have misappropriated money up to the tune of over N4 billion, this include an aircraft which they sold without accounting for it.
“There were monies that was meant for payment of pension of our retired staff which they squandered, there were monies that were meant for agriculture and health which they can’t account for, they knew that the next administration is going to question all of these and that was why they quickly went and brought in another denomination, assuring the whole world that they must account for all these when time comes. Bishop Ande Emmanuel stated.”
Reacting to the allegations, the former Bishop, John Wesley Yohanna, dismissed the claims, noting that Emmanuel once served as his confidential secretary and defended the church’s financial audits during his tenure. His response was conveyed through the Director of Communication of GMCN, Rev. Ezekiel Maidamari.
Maidamari said: “Yes, the aircraft was sold, Ande was part Bishop John Wesley at the time, he defended all the audits organized by the mother body of UMCN, why is he making claims today, let him take his case to court of he has any. Maidamari stated.”
He also urged the UMCN leadership to seek legal resolution rather than making public accusations, insisting that all transactions during Yohanna’s administration were properly audited and documented.
