UPDATE: Couple ‘forced’ Pastor Essa Ogorry out of sick bed to conduct cancelled wedding

On February 6, Pastor Essa Ogorry of Fulfilling Word Foundation Church refused to conduct a general wedding for a couple who showed up late, it was reported.

Ogorry has now died. He passed away on Tuesday, exactly a year after his wife breathed her last. The late couple were survived by a 17-year-old.

“He tried to preach the Sunday after the wedding but he was not in his normal strength,” a church member who didn’t want to be named said.

“He went back to the hospital and he gave up on Tuesday morning.”

Fresh details have now emerged about the wedding fiasco and how the Rivers-based pastor was “pressured” out of sick his bed to conduct the wedding only for the couple to show up late.

What was not reported as of the time the wedding fiasco made the news was that Ogorry offered to join the Port Harcourt couple in his office.

The pastor was reportedly ill and receiving treatment in Abuja and wanted to delegate wedding duties to another minister.

The couple, who are founding members of the church, then begged the pastor to leave his sick bed and show up for the wedding. The pastor, who is said to be a perfectionist, agreed to honour the long-standing members and flew into Port Harcourt from Abuja.

But the couple were 40 minutes late, another source told The Realm News. Pastor Ogorry then put a call across to the couple but they didn’t pick his call. It was after they failed to pick or return his call that the pastor returned to his office for health reasons, the source said.

“Pastor Ogorry came that day and waited for five minutes,” another church member reportedly said.

“Before the day, he did interviews with the intending couple and he told them not to allow him look bad in the face of the congregation because that kind of thing had happened before when intending couples come so late and all the members will be waiting for them.

“For that reason, there is a document that every to-be couple sign that pastor has the right to cancel their wedding if they are late. The to-be couple in question signed it.

“They came more than five minutes late, they came over 15 minutes late and pastor had already gone into his office as he was not feeling well.

“The bride came to pastor and pleaded. Pastor considered going on with the wedding. He requested that he join them in his office as he wasn’t feeling well but the groom and his family rained insults on him. Then, an uproar ensued and pastor left the church.”