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Undertakers Fight Over Cele Leader's Body

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P.M. News (Lagos)

November 13, 2003
Posted to the web November 13, 2003

Lanre Olaleye
Lagos

Barely a month after the death of one of the factional leaders of the Celestial Church of Christ (CCC), the Most Superior Senior Evangelist Gilbert Oluwatosin Jesse, the church is enmeshed in a controversy over the undertakers to engage for the burial ceremony.

PMNews exclusively gathered last night that some influential members of the Tejuoso Parish of the CCC are displeased over the choice of the undertakers for the burial of the late Celestial leader.

Pa. Jesse died last October at the age of 68. Since his demise, members of the Burial Committee headed by the Chairman of Highway Managers, Evangelist Odunmbaku, were said to be divided over the choice of the funeral undertakers to handle the burial.

While some are favourably disposed to MIC, others are said to prefer Ebony. Both companies reportedly pulled strings through influential members of the CCC, ostensibly to facilitate the contract which a source close to the church revealed, runs into millions of naira.

At a point, P.M.News learnt that supporters of both companies engaged each other in fisticuffs. This prompted the decisions of the Burial Committee to write both parties to come forward to defend their proposals. On the appointed date, officials of MIC failed to appear.

But in a surprise move, the committee reportedly announced the name of a different company, PMC Funeral House, as the undertakers of the burial.

This development, P.M.News gathered, has not gone down well with many people in the church, who have equally vowed to resist the imposition of the new funeral company on the church.