Operatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) said on Sunday that they have arrested an Abuja-based pastor for the alleged rape and sexual exploitation of a 16-year-old orphan (name withheld), and impregnating her in the process.
NAPTIP disclosed the identity of suspect as David Onyekachukwu, from Nsukka, Enugu State. He is also a full time pastor with the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Church (MFM), Gwarimpa branch, Abuja.
NAPTIP spokesperson Stella Nezan alleged in a statement released in Abuja that the suspect was asked to conduct deliverance on the girl after she was accused of being a witch, but he ended up taking advantage of her vulnerability by sexually molesting, repeatedly.
Nezan said that preliminary investigation revealed that the pastor lost his wife sometimes ago, and was left with a daughter. It also revealed that the suspect and the victim’s late parents share the same neighborhood in Karimo community, a suburb of Abuja.
After the death of the victim’s parents, the suspect volunteered to take her in and assist in her education.
During interrogation, the abusive pastor confessed to having sex with the girl only twice, attributing his actions to the devil.
He stated that he took the girl in, conducted “deliverance” for her and also enrolled her in school, having missed school for about two years.
“But after the deliverance, she couldn’t find a to stay; I then took her to live with me and my daughter,” the clergyman confessed.
The victim, in her statement, confirmed that the clergyman started making advances to her after her first year of living in their house, but she constantly resisted it.
She said the first time she was raped was in March during her birthday. She said the pastor took her and his daughter out to some relaxation spots in Abuja.
“In the evening of that day, after the pastor’s daughter had gone to bed, he approached me with the love advances and pounced on me, ignoring all my pleas for mercy,” the victim explained.
It was gathered during investigation that the clergyman had thereafter the first encounter continued his actions at will, resulting in the girl getting pregnant.
NAPTIP Director General Julie Okah-Donli described the action of the man as the “highest form of wickedness against a fellow human being,” considering the fact that the victim is a vulnerable and helpless orphan.
“I am deeply sad and disappointed by the action of this man who ordinarily ought to have provided hope for the girl by virtue of his position as a clergyman,” Okah-Donli said.
“But rather than doing what was Biblically expected of him in line with his calling, he abused his position and preyed on the very victim he was supposed to protect.”
