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The Lead Pastor of Streams of Joy International, Jerry Eze, has responded to comments made by the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, regarding an investigation into alleged money laundering involving him.
Speaking on Wednesday at the Jerry Eze Foundation Business Grant Award Ceremony in Abuja, the cleric described the investigation period as emotionally distressing.
“I remember that the EFCC chairman was talking about the investigation. He’s saying it, and he’s happy. But he didn’t know the kind of… I remember talking to Pastor Poju at the time. I remember talking to Pastor Sarah. I’m like, what did I do? I’ve not done anything. I don’t know why these people are after me,” Eze said.
He added, “I wake up, I’m driving to NSPPD in the morning… You did me wrong. I must say it. I’m driving in the morning, and I’m crying, and I’m saying, ‘Jesus, Lord, you know.’ I prayed for you. I put your name on the altar because it looked like… I didn’t know what it was.”
Eze, however, said he was grateful that the probe eventually cleared him of any wrongdoing.
“But then again, the interesting thing is that when he came, he said, ‘We looked through your books, and we didn’t find anything wrong you did,’ and I am beyond grateful to God,” he added.
His remarks followed statements by EFCC Chairman Olukoyede, who revealed that he ordered a six-month investigation into the cleric after intelligence reports pointed to large inflows of foreign currency into a domiciliary account linked to him.
“I am going to embarrass you today. I never wanted to say it, but I just felt that was my little way of making this contribution,” Olukoyede said.
“I investigated this man for six months for money laundering. We work by intelligence; we work by petitions. At some point, there was an account, a domiciliary account; dollars and pounds were dropping like raindrops from Colombia, from America, from Sri Lanka, even from Togo,” he said.
According to Olukoyede, investigators examined the financial records and traced the sources of the funds before inviting Eze for questioning, where he provided explanations linking the inflows to his ministry and charitable work.
The EFCC chairman added that no wrongdoing was established at the conclusion of the investigation.
Rather than pursue prosecution, he said the commission commended the cleric and advised him to maintain transparency, while noting that monitoring of financial activities would continue as part of its regulatory duties.
