Shame? This Is Why COZA Pastor’s Wife, Modele
Fatoyinbo Might Not Speak Up Against Her Husband

In less than a day, the Senior pastor and founder of the
Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA), Biodun Fatoyinbo went from
being a celebrated ‘man of God’ to disgraced outcast and tagged a
r@p!st by so many Nigerians and it became imperative to talk about
why his wife is still and might remain quiet on the very
controversial issue.

The internet went into a frenzy on June 28, 2019 when the wife
of soul singer, Timi Dakolo, Busola, had alleged that she was
r@p&d as a teenager by the flamboyant Abuja based pastor.
According to her, she was a 16-year-old in the Divine Delight Club
at Ilorin, kwara State; the precursor to Fatoyinbo’s Commonwealth
of Zion Assembly when she was groomed and r@p&d by the him.

Dakolo explained that as a member of the church, she was
r@p&d at two different times in a week by the pastor, adding
that she lost her virginity to him before she turned 18. She
alleged that the pastor r@p&d her for the first time at her
parent’s home and at another time in a secluded road path. Although
the ‘man of God’ has come out with a statement to disprove the
accusations laid against, more and more victims are coming out to
corroborate the claim.

That leads to a very vital point: there is an iota of truth in
all these cases. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the seeming
omnipresence of a ‘man of God’ who allegedly abused a lot of ladies
and significant others. Yet it wasn’t just the man who fueled the
despair: everywhere you looked, it seemed as though there were
women — often outspoken, accomplished, feminist women — lining up
to support and defend the man who’d been accused of abuse.

Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo holds a church with congregation of
several thousands of people, and has several worship centres in
neighbouring states. At least twice as many people as the number of
COZA congregation is believed to listen to his sermons all over the
world, including countries like the United States of America,
Mexico, and neighbouring African countries.

COZA started out as a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) in
Ilorin, Kwara State in 1999 with a very small congregation but has
since grown into a megachurch with over 20,000 members and an ever
increasing online fellowship. It has only five branches and
four ordained  full time pastors which is surprising
considering the pedigree of the church. Ilorin branch started in
1999, Abuja in 2008, Lagos in 2012, Port Harcourt in 2016 and
Dubai  in 2017.

Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo lives a luxury lifestyle and his church
is one that celebrates youths. The church is comfortable with
christian songs with with secular undertones. The church feels the
members are supposed to have fun in church and not get bored. He
mans the headquarters of COZA in Abuja alongside his wife, Pastor
Modele Fatoyinbo who is popularly called Mummy D. Their marriage is
blessed with four children.

She is a prolific preacher of the gospel and a writer of word
based books. She is as fashionable as she is spiritual, maintaining
a balanced Christian life. Pastor Modele’s love for God and passion
for exceptional Christian living is undebatable. She hosts an
annual outreach known as “The Woman of Colour Conference”, through
which she has touched the lives of several women across ages.

She is not just a preacher’s wife, but a preacher married to a
preacher. Her platform of influence extends beyond the pulpit as
she also communicates divine wisdom through her writings. It sure
takes an exceptional dose of grace to combine the roles of a
pastor, intercessor, wife, mother, author, and counselor. Pastor
Modele is all these and more, just in one package – a truly
peculiar treasure.

There is a fear from some Nigerians that Modele is aware of her
husband’s deeds. The question on their minds is: why would she not
speak out or leave? And as much as one wishes there was an easy
answer here, there isn’t. Being in a relationship with someone
accused of abuse is traumatising; it also leaves you confused and
shaken. Perhaps she had never thought that the person she loved
could harm her in such a way. And this is part of the problem. As
is the shame.

She might not speak up or leave because of it. She might be
completely hard on and blame herself and come up with scenarios on
what she could’ve done to prevent it from happening, to make
everything stop. She might struggle to articulate her hurt. But
there is a reckoning that hasn’t yet happened and that’s with
women, who use their bodies and social positions as wives and
mothers to mediate how monsters in the society are handled and it’s
one women have been playing for years. In other places too, women
have been laying down their bodies and reputations to protect men
from their actions.

She could also be keeping mute on the matter because deep down,
she like ‘bad boys’. It’s been said that ladies are attracted to
bad boys. But truth is, no lady wants a man who will hurt her; no
lady wants a man who is a womanizer, a liar, selfish, cold or
unfaithful. The “bad” that ladies are often attracted to is not bad
when it comes to character but “bad” in style and personality- a
man who is loyal and loving to the woman but has a strong and
almost care free personality, a man who is exciting and nicely
dangerous; who brings the good kind of drama and makes her blood
run. One who takes risks.

It could also be because he is an abusive husband. When you’re
in an abusive relationship, defending shitty men becomes second
nature. It is, quite literally, a survival strategy. Admitting to
yourself that you’re partnered with an abuser can be a terrifying
task, so your brain finds ways to justify all the horrible abuse
you’re subjected to. Your partner isn’t cruel, he just loves you
enough to be brutally honest; he didn’t lie to you, you just must
have misunderstood what he meant. The more horrific your partner’s
actions become, the more imperative it feels to normalize them —
and the justifications become so second nature that it’s easy to
extend them to your partner’s behavior with other people.

Maybe she is scared to admit to herself that her husband’s
actions towards these women were wrong and that it could open up a
whole Pandora’s box of horrific revelations that she might not be
ready to confront. It may be easier to tell herself that it was
normal for her partner to secretly sleep with other ladies, because
to acknowledge that she had signed a lease with the kind of monster
who’d do that meant coming to terms with the reality that she’d
trapped herself in a nightmare relationship.

Why do women protect, defend, and support terrible men? Is it
because it is easier to make excuses for the men in their lives
than to admit they’d bedded and befriended people with truly
horrific attitudes towards women? Or is it because theri parents
once told them to always support their husbands no matter what?
Parents need to stop giving their daughters fatal false hopes that
protecting a man’s feelings before their own will protect them.