Okey Enelamah, considered a pastor at the Redeemed Christian Church of God, secretly hobnobbed with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein while serving as Nigerian trade minister, files released by the U.S. Justice Department have revealed.

In the Epstein files, former Goldman Sachs partner Jide Zeitlin arranged a meeting between Nigeria’s then-trade minister, Mr Enelamah and convicted paedophile Mr Epstein.

In the years following Mr Epstein’s conviction and initial 13 months in jail for molesting minors in 2008, he continued to be a magnet for the high and mighty amid a morass of lawsuits largely hinged on sex crimes. Mr Zeitlin engaged the paedophile in discussions about the development of a seaport in Badagry, Lagos, and facilitated a meeting between Mr Epstein and Mr Enelamah.

The confidence crisis and staggering sexual assault charges that assailed Mr Epstein, however, had no bearing on Mr Zeitlin, who met new people through the sex offender and discussed entrusting the Badagry seaport to the paedophile’s associate, Sultan Bin Sulayem.

“Dear Jide, Jeffrey introduced us a while ago. We are very interested in Nigeria. The two locations available are Badagry and Lekki. We prefer Badagry because the infrastructure is better,” Mr Sulayem wrote to the Nigerian Wall Street investor in June 2018.

During the same period, Bill Gates distanced himself from Mr Epstein. The Microsoft founder asked the sex offender to delete all correspondence between them and resign from BG3 and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with a two-year severance pay.

Despite the blowback, Mr Zeitlin, who himself was not a stranger to sexual abuse scandals, arranged a meeting between Mr Epstein and the then-Nigerian trade minister to advance discussions on the seaport development at the World Economic Forum.

“Okey Enelamah, Nigeria’s trade minister, stopped by my home this evening as he was still in town after Buhari’s visit with Trump. He mentioned his discussions with you at WEF,” Mr Zeitlin wrote to Mr Epstein on May 3, 2018. “Whenever we meet, I have some thoughts that may be helpful to you.”

For weeks, Mr Enelamah avoided discussing his relationship with Mr Epstein with Peoples Gazette. After initially promising a detailed text message, the RCCG preacher failed to deliver. After he was informed that the story would run without his comment, a publicist representing him called to say the ex-minister was not involved in Mr Epstein’s crime against minors or any other criminal activities.

Mr Enelamah’s tenure as trade minister was dogged by corruption controversies, including allegations that he colluded with telecommunications giant MTN to repatriate $13 billion out of Nigeria in 2016. The pastor denied the allegation.

In 2019, Mr Enelamah was questioned by the Senate over the alleged diversion of N42 billion to a private entity linked to the Nigeria Special Economic Zone project. The trade minister rejected the claim, asserting that the decision to involve private investors in the launch of the Nigeria Special Economic Zone Company was an initiative of then-President Muhammadu Buhari.

However, senators disputed his account, saying their investigation showed that the company was registered as Nigeria SEZ Investment Company Limited with the Corporate Affairs Commission, not the Nigeria Special Economic Zone Company as Mr Enelamah claimed. Despite the dispute, the former minister maintained that he committed no wrongdoing, arguing that the company was created at the president’s discretion.

Mr Zeitlin, the intermediary for Mr Enelamah, was the former CEO of Tapestry, the parent company that owns Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman luxury brands, until a double identity scandal exposed him as the Wall Street investor who secretly enjoyed photographing naked women whom he lured into a building beside his family home, just a few feet from his wife and children.

Mr Zeitlin was born to a Nigerian family in Ibadan. His mother worked as a domestic helper for foreigners, including Arnold Zeitlin, an American reporter for the Associated Press stationed in Lagos at the time. He travelled to spend time with his mother in Lagos and soon became a favourite face to the Zeitlins, who became his legal guardians and subsequently took him to the United States. He ditched his Nigerian surname and officially became a Zeitlin. His mother later relocated to London to serve as domestic help for Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Annan, who, after some years, became the UN secretary-general.

The AP reporter enrolled the young Zeitlin into Milton Academy and Amherst College, where he studied English and Economics. He also obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School. His big break came when he secured an internship with Goldman Sachs, registering his presence on Wall Street. As a competent protégé of Hank Paulson, a senior executive at Goldman Sachs, Mr Zeitlin rose through the ranks to become a partner at the establishment, amassing tens of millions of dollars.

Mr Zeitlin’s Wall Street expertise paved the way for a government appointment when former President Barack Obama nominated him to serve as the U.S. ambassador for UN management and reform in 2009.

His nomination, approved by the U.S. Congress later, went to the drain after Gretchen Raymond, a woman he had previously lured to his photography studio and with whom he had an affair using an alias, James Greene, wrote to senators to disclose their affair.

In January 2007, Ms Raymond had responded to an ad seeking fitness models for a photoshoot. The correspondence thereon focused on what she should wear for the shoot, with the photographer making a specific request.

“Please remember not to wear panties or a bra when you come into the city on Monday…,” wrote the Wall Street investor posing asa photographer to the fitness model.

Mr Greene (Zeitlin) told the lady that he did not want panty or bra lines appearing in the shots. After the photo shoot, he could not provide any pictures from the session, claiming he had lost the files.

Later, the duo became friends and then lovers. They became so close that Mr Greene confessed he was not a real photographer and told Ms Raymond his real name. She googled it and found that he was married.

Ms Raymond was also married at the time and thereon continued what was a consensual affair. He later ended the affair in October 2007, which was devastating for the model, who professed to still be in love with him.

Things turned ugly after Ms Raymond’s husband found out about the tryst and called Mr Zeitlin’s wife to tell her about the affair. Both women exchanged nasty messages over the licentious relationship.

The Raymond couple did some digging and found that Mr Zeitlin photographed other ladies, mostly nude or in lingerie, at the Sohophoto Studio, which they discovered was adjacent to the Nigerian man’s family home.

“I had no idea at the time, though, that his wife and child were right next door,” she said in her complaint contesting Mr Zeitlin’s UN nomination.

Her formal complaints eventually led to the cancellation of Mr Zeitlin’s nomination as U.S. envoy to the UN, even though the White House accorded him the courtesy of telling the world that he withdrew his nomination for “personal reasons”.

Mr Zeitlin has denied any wrongdoing but shouldered the blame for the “relationship” that led to his resignation from a thriving career on Wall Street over his double identity.

“In the past month, a woman I photographed and had a relationship with more than 10 years ago reached out to various media organisations to express her concerns about what had occurred. … I felt compelled to resign today because I do not want to create a distraction for Tapestry, a company I care deeply about,” the Nigerian wrote as he stepped down from the CEO role in July 2020.