‘If any one can go to heaven, talk to God, and take a selfie – I will resign.’

President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte has offered to resign if anyone can take a selfie with God to prove he exists. His comments came just days after he called God “stupid”.

The latest outburst shows Duterte, aged 73, increasingly at odds with the Church in which he was raised and to which most Filipinos belong.

In the last few days, Duterte has also said he does not like the “creeping influence” of the Catholic Church. In addition, his presidential spokesman has accused the Church of working with Communist rebels to overthrow the government in the Philippines. The spokesman said the Church “sometimes runs counter to what the government believes to be good for the people, at least in this temporal life”.

In his latest speech on Saturday at the inauguration of the Malayan colleges in Mindanao, Duterte invited everyone “to become agents of hope and catalysts of progress”.

He urged all sectors of our society to keep supporting his administration’s development agenda, especially in pursuits that would educate our young and empower more Filipinos, and his government’s ongoing campaign against illegal drugs and criminality.

“This will be helpful in ridding ourselves of the social ills that have shackled our growth and hindered our country from achieving its full potential.”

After describing his own progress through the education system and then his career in law and politics, he said he believed in God, but did not believe in a God who intervenes in the world. “Otherwise there would be no widespread injustice: hunger, killings, and all.”

If any one of the many billions of people on earth can go to heaven, talk to God, and take a selfie, “I will step down tomorrow. No question,” he said.

The Catholic bishops in the Philippines have been highly critical of Duterte’s crackdown on drugs, which has resulted in thousands of deaths.

Two priests have themselves been shot this year, one only last month. In the last few days the bishops have called for fasting and prayers after Duterte called God “stupid”.

The president said in his latest address: “Every Filipino is entitled to criticise me as a matter of right. A general, a school dean, the academe, the students.”

If he falls short of expectations they are right to criticise because he will have failed them in his promises. “But certainly not a foreigner, however holy, he said. He will not allow foreigners to attack him, just as he is not allowed to attack leaders of other countries.

Referring to the priests, and the Church, and everybody connected with any religion or whatever, he continued: “When you criticise me, criticise me with all the heart’s content. Do it. I’m even asking you to do it.” However, the separation of Church and state is a principle of the republican system of government.

“So when you criticise me, do not use the platform of God, that God will send you to hell, that God will never forgive you, hell is waiting for you. Do not do it. Do not take God — God’s name in vain. It’s fundamental. It’s almost basic. There is really a clear cut between religion and governance. You cannot use God to criticise me.”

He has never said he does not believe in God. “But something terrible happened when we were young… while confessing, we were fondled.”

So when he graduated, he decided he no longer believed in the Catholic God and created his own God instead – a God of justice and fairness. “My God is my service to the people. Period.”

Alhaji Lasisi Oluboyo, the ex-ondo deputy governor and the father of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko final year student, Khadijah, who was allegedly killed by her boyfriend for ritual purpose.

The deceased was murdered under mysterious circumstances by her Abuja-based boyfriend, Adeyemi Alao, in Oke-Aro area of Akure metropolis.

Oluboyo, who confirmed to journalists that her daughter was killed for ritual purpose on Monday, disclosed that the family discovered she was missing on Monday, July 2, 2018.

“Somebody called us that she was missing. We started looking for her. We got in touch with her friends in the school. The closest friend told us that they finished lecture on Thursday. They took the same motorcycle to their houses.

“On Friday, they had no lecture, when the friend got to the lecture room on Monday and did not see her, she started calling her numbers.”

The father, who is the immediate past Deputy Governor of the state, revealed he sent “the money for her feeding on Friday, the usual thing is that when she got bank alert, she would call me back to thank me.

“But this day, I did not get a response from her. I told her mother and she started calling her. The phones were switched off. On Monday, we started calling her number and it did not get through. Later the phone rang, they picked it and we were hearing an underground sound.

“The phone switched off again. Later we got a text that the mouthpiece of the phone is not good and that she would call when she changed the sim card to another phone. With that, we thought that everything was settled. We were waiting anxiously for the call.”

He noted that Khadijah’s friend even contacted the family that she too had been calling her number to no avail, adding that “the same person sent a message to that her friend that she was on her way coming.”

Establishing the relationship between late Khadijat and Alao, the father said, “It was then I got to know that she came to Akure to meet that boy. From what the father told us, there is no doubt that they were once boy and girlfriend.

“They met each other at College of Education, Ondo. When we started looking for the girl, the father called me, he said he is the father of Adeyemi, he said my daughter came to their house on Thursday and left on Friday morning.

“He said she used to come in the past but stopped suddenly, that she was the type he wants his son to marry. I said we were not talking of marriage and that we were looking for her. The man called and started praying. When we called, the boy said she came on Thursday and left on Friday.”

While exposing the ruse kidnap scenario to cover up for her six days disappearance, the ex-Deputy Governor recounted that “my daughter had four numbers. She had two handsets, one with two sims, one with one sim.

“The old number she was using was kept in her bag. What happened was that when we tracked the first number, it went off immediately after Roadblock at Owo. The second number went off after Oba-Akoko.

“That gave us the impression that she was travelling and that she was going back to school. We got it on good authority that she came to Akure. That gave us belief that she was going back.

“When they sent a message that we should wait for negotiation team, we discovered it was one of the numbers in her bag that they used to send the message to us. It was a perfect arrangement to buy time.”

Revealing how the mysterious disappearance which led to the death of her daughter was unravelled, he narrated that “when we tried our best, we organized prayers. When we finished with the prayers, he got the hint and said he cannot continue.

“He rushed out and confessed to his immediate sister. He said this is what I did; I cannot cope, go and help me carry sack. The sister rushed to the father and narrated the story.”

Contrary to widespread speculations that Alao just dumped the decomposing body of the victim under his bed, Oluboyo affirmed that “the boy dug a grave in his room, buried her and put his foam on the grave and was sleeping on the grave. She was not found under the bed, the boy has no bed.

“The boy killed her for ritual purposes. It is not that the girl was not well-fed. The lady did not go there on her own volition. To me, I don’t want anything. God’s judgment is more than all the human’s verdict. The danger is that if you allow him to go scot-free, he would do it again.”