Mobbed by young fans, clad in designer clothes: Inside the mysterious life of 'Pastor Tobi', the sinister Lamborghini-driving illegal migrant pastor living like a celebrity in London despite conning vulnerable young male followers out of £2million
Stepping out of a black Lamborghini, dressed in a two-piece Under Armour tracksuit with dark sunglasses and a cap pulled down tightly over his face, Tobi Adegboyega looks more like a movie star than a church pastor.
In a video he shared on Instagram on March 25 this year, the Nigerian founder of the Peckham-based Salvation Proclaimers Anointed Church (SPAC Nation) is being mobbed by adoring young fans as he attends a charity running event in central London organised by his church.
However, despite the incongruity of a clergyman having this Hollywood appearance and celebrity status, what’s most surprising is that he is in this country at all.
For in December 2024, Adegboyega lost an appeal against deportation after it emerged he’d been living in Britain illegally for more than 20 years, having first arrived from Lagos in 2005 on a six-month tourist visa.
When questioned about this in an interview with the BBC, the pastor claimed he had simply ‘lost track of time’. Regardless, it appears that 16 months after the immigration tribunal, the 45-year-old continues to live in the UK.
This matters because Pastor Tobi – as he styles himself – is behind an evangelical church targeting impoverished black youths under 30, which has been accused of everything from corporate fraud to the sexual and financial exploitation of minors.
Tobi Adegboyega, 'Pastor Tobi', the Nigerian founder of the Peckham-based Salvation Proclaimers Anointed Church (SPAC Nation)
All this while preaching a dangerous form of ‘prosperity gospel’ that promises untold riches to those who raise money – by any means necessary – for the church.
‘It will be done on Earth, the same way it is done in Heaven,’ Pastor Tobi promises in one sermon seen by the Daily Mail, assuring his congregation that wealth awaits the faithful.
As if seeing were believing, Pastor Tobi inspires his congregation by driving around in a £150,000 Rolls-Royce (as well as the Lamborghini), showing off his extensive collection of gold Rolex watches and hosting lavish parties at his £2.5 million Surrey home.
At its peak, SPAC Nation claimed to have more than 2,000 members, 200 ordained ministers and was making up to £1million every month from donations. However, the company behind the so-called ‘church of bling’ was wound up in 2022 after it was subject to a probe by the Charity Commission, which found that nearly £2 million of the church’s funds was missing.
Unsurprisingly, Pastor Tobi’s reputation was left in tatters. And yet, in spite of everything – not least his migration status – the charismatic preacher is still here.
The church has consistently denied any wrongdoing and Pastor Tobi’s lawyer, Dele Olawanle, has denied his client is subject to deportation, stating: ‘Deportation is for criminals. He is not. Even though the courts and the Charity Commission had issues with SPAC Nations, he was not personally found guilty of any wrongdoings.’
It is now well over a year since Adegboyega lost his appeal. So why is the man accused by Labour MP Steve Reed of running a ‘brainwashing cult’ still allowed to live and preach in Britain?
The story begins in February 2005 when fresh-faced Nigerian graduate Tobi Adegboyega stepped off a plane in Britain aged 25, allegedly for a short holiday.
He moved in with his uncle – understood to be the Pentecostal minister Samson Adegboyega – in Peckham, south London, where he shared a room with his then 13-year-old cousin John Boyega, who would later go on to acting superstardom courtesy of a leading role in the rebooted Star Wars franchise and a Golden Globe win in 2021.
A black Lamborghini belonging to Tobi Adegboyega with a number plate which reads 'PA57ORR', or 'Pastor'
Little is known about Pastor Tobi’s life in Nigeria, except that he studied law but never went into professional practice.
However, according to SPAC Nation’s website – now called Nxtion Family – the young man quickly discovered a ‘passion for helping young people, especially those involved in gang culture’, prompting him to start pastoring a small group of 16 local people, offering Bible study from his uncle’s flat.
Within two years his congregation reached triple figures, forcing services to move to a string of rented venues including a building next to the Ministry of Sound nightclub in south London, a Novotel hotel and even the Greenwich Picturehouse.
Footage shared on YouTube shows that services typically saw Pastor Tobi roaming the room with a handheld microphone, often accompanied by a live rock band and preaching in the exuberant style popularised by American evangelists, while the young, exclusively black congregation cheered like football fans.
And as the clergy grew, so the meetings became less about scripture and more about ‘seed’ – Adegboyega’s euphemistic word for cash. The bargain was simple: if you raised money for the church and its leadership, God would reward you with wealth beyond your wildest dreams.
By 2013, SPAC Nation was registered as a charity. The project, so Pastor Tobi claimed, was to prevent these young people falling into a life of crime.
In a 2022 interview with the Nigerian media personality Chude Jideonwo, Pastor Tobi claimed his church was at its peak taking more knives off the streets each year than the Metropolitan Police.
‘After each service, at least three police vans would come to collect things that people had surrendered on the altar,’ he boasted.
Duly, political figures queued up to praise SPAC Nation for its grassroots approach to tackling crime. Theresa May’s former No 10 chief of staff Gavin Barwell attended church services and even posed for photographs with Pastor Tobi who later appeared – sitting directly behind Boris Johnson – at the 2019 Tory conference.
But that was the year everything started to go wrong.
Private WhatsApp messages were leaked on social media and appeared to show one of the church’s 200 ministers admitting to corporate fraud to a new member of the congregation.
‘So we open and create a business for you,’ the unnamed minister explained, ‘after that’s done we get you a business overdraft at HSBC and the whole process, if your [sic] quick, takes 2-3 weeks. This is what we do to sow seed bro.’
It was alleged that young followers – typically from deprived backgrounds – were encouraged to set up fake businesses from which they would withdraw credit before handing the money to the church.
A spokesman for the church denied the allegations, which were widely reported in the Press, claiming: ‘SPAC Nation as a church does not have any loan with any bank or any person. We are 100 per cent against any fraud or illegal activity.’
However, the problems were only just beginning.
In early December 2019, it was alleged – in an investigation by the Huffington Post – that followers had been encouraged to donate blood to medical trials being carried out by private pharmaceutical companies in order to raise money for the church. The tactic, known to insiders as ‘bleeding for seed’, allegedly paid out £100 a pump. At the time, SPAC Nation said that ‘any encouragement to ask anyone to donate blood is not done here’.
Days later on December 16, BBC’s Panorama broadcast its own investigation entitled Conned By My Church featuring a string of horrifying testimonials alleging shocking abuse and exploitation.
Tobi Adegboyega speaking with London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan in July 2008
‘I am convinced that SPAC Nation is a cult,’ declared Labour MP Steve Reed in Parliament in January 2020 before criticising the leadership’s outrageous displays of wealth
One 18-year-old whistleblower known as Lovis had a £5,000 loan taken out in her name by a company associated with the church, without her permission, after she had shared her bank details with a minister while suffering from kidney cancer.
A second, Gracy, joined the church in 2017 aged 21. A minister soon offered to apply for Universal Credit on her behalf. Weeks later she received a benefits payment for £1,200, significantly more than she was entitled to. It emerged that her application had falsely disclosed she had two children, increasing her entitlement. The church told her to deposit £900 across two church accounts, allowing her to keep the remainder.
‘I am convinced that SPAC Nation is a cult,’ declared Labour MP Steve Reed in Parliament in January 2020 before criticising the leadership’s outrageous displays of wealth. The Streatham and Croydon North MP then alleged – using parliamentary privilege – that some male SPAC Nation pastors were engaging in sexual relations with young female followers.
And furthermore, that much of the abuse was taking place in so-called ‘Trap’ houses where church followers could live rent free, only to be ‘encouraged to break their links with their families,’ according to Reed, and ‘brainwashed’ into making money for the church. Was Tobi Adegboyega little more than a modern-day Fagin?
Pastor Tobi has dismissed all allegations against him, adding in a BBC interview: ‘If you have 1,000 people in a place, are you telling me 30 people will not be disgruntled? How on earth do you run an organisation without disgruntled people?’
And after reviewing the allegations against SPAC Nation, the Met decided in February 2020 to take no further action, which Reed said was ‘perverse’.
For now, at least, Pastor Tobi continues to spread his message across the capital. And, although his church may no longer be about God, it certainly doesn’t lack for faith
‘Officers from Central Specialist Crime carried out a review to identify if any criminal offences had been committed,’ read the police statement. ‘This review is now complete and no criminal investigation has been launched into these specific allegations.’
Presumably sensing the prevailing winds, in May 2020, Pastor Tobi stepped down from everyday leadership of the church.
In June 2022, the registered company associated with SPAC Nation was wound up by a High Court judge after the Insolvency Service found it had failed to account for £1.87 million of spending.
A subsequent review by the Charity Commission found ‘the charity was operating with a lack of transparency’ including filing ‘suspicious and incorrect’ accounts.
But this wasn’t the end of the story. For the church itself faced no criminal proceedings and continued to operate under its new name: Nxtion Family.
The fresh-look institution led by Pastor Tobi appears to operate almost identically, claiming online: ‘Our pursuit is to turn people from low economic, social, or leadership backgrounds into global leaders.’
Yet there is little mention of religion. In fact, it appears that Pastor Tobi has disowned his Christian roots altogether. In a video earlier this year, he described Christianity as a ‘social construct’ before claiming it had been used by white colonialists involved in the slave trade to subdue the African continent.
And yet the more pressing question is surely whether Tobi Adegboyega should be in this country at all. According to a source well acquainted with the case, the likelihood of Adegboyega being sent back to Nigeria is ‘slim at best’ due to the complex and ‘often overly cautious, perhaps lenient’ nature of the deportation procedure.
While the Home Office does not comment on individual cases, a spokesman told the Daily Mail: ‘Those who flout the rules and are in the UK illegally should be in no doubt that we will remove you at the earliest opportunity.’
While Pastor Tobi and Nxtion Family did not respond to the Daily Mail’s inquiries, SPAC Nation has previously denied any wrongdoing.
For now, at least, Pastor Tobi continues to spread his message across the capital. And, although his church may no longer be about God, it certainly doesn’t lack for faith. The faith that if you raise enough money for his church, Pastor Tobi will make you rich.
Comments 0
Share what you think
No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.
