December 25, (THEWILL) – Hon Biola Makinde and his wife, Rhoda, have reportedly lost N40 million in a business deal brought to them by a clergyman and a gospel artiste.
The clergyman, Apostle Olawale Philip Ilesanmi, the founder of Call of Salvation and Deliverance Ministries, Brentwood, Maryland, United States, convinced Rhoda to invest in a chromite business in South Africa in return for a mouthwatering monthly return on investment (ROI). Rhoda, a resident of Maryland and congregant of the church, was told her ROI would be in the region of N30,000,000.
Chromite is a metal used for inducing hardness, toughness and chemical resistance in steel. It is a natural mineral mined in South Africa and a lucrative business.
With the high ROI and the trust she had in Apostle Ilesanmi and Shadare, Rhoda decided to invest in the business. She did not suspect the two men and reportedly invested about N40,000,000 in 2019.
After waiting for two years without getting any return on investment and not hearing from Ilesanmi and Shadare, she ran to court in September 2021. She filed a case against the two at Circuit Court for Prince George’s Country in Maryland, demanding a refund of the money invested.
While narrating his own part of the ordeal, Shadare stated that he met one Dayo David, a Nigerian living in South Africa who introduced him to the business. Shadare, in turn, informed his pastor, Apostle Ilesanmi, of the lucrative business. Ilesanmi, in turn, told Rhoda about it. Shadare collected more funds from other investors and sent them to David. After a few months without any news from South Africa, he tried to contact David but couldn’t reach him. When he eventually did, David told him that he had been sick and was in Sierra Leone. All efforts to collect the money invested have proven abortive.
Rhoda, who is bent on getting her money back, has been going in and out of court since the case started a few months ago. However, high-ranking members of the church have been mounting pressure on the lawmaker’s wife to drop the case and accept her fate. Meanwhile, her husband, Biola Makinde, is allegedly worried the issue might affect his political career and has been trying to keep it away from the public.
