President of Omega Fire Ministries International Apostle Johnson Suleman has retracted his statement that he did not want COVID-19 to end.
The cleric came under criticism after he made the statement in a viral video, adding that he bought his third private jet during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In reaction to the backlash, Suleman told a congregation during a sermon that the video was edited and posted to social media by another pastor to ridicule him.
Suleman said: “There’s a video that is trending about me. It was posted by a pastor against me. It was a programme I had in Abuja and I was trying to explain something about COVID-19. When they told me that I prayed for COVID-19 not to end, I said ‘me? I didn’t say that.’
“When they brought the video, I discovered it slipped out of my mouth. There’s no pastor that will pray for Covid not to end. It doesn’t make sense.
“I was talking about what happens around Covid, how families were staying together, how families united, how some people even made money during that process. That was what I was trying to buttress and it slipped out of my mouth. I could not have prayed for Covid not to end, no pastor would do that. But he (the pastor) took that mistake, edited some part and blew it.”
Suleman said people did not need to criticise him for buying his third private jet, adding that when he built schools, prison, a federal road, provided transformers and placed some members of his church on salaries, no one talked about it.
