Rape at the altar

The pastor had lured the girl to his church by accusing her of being possessed by seven marine spirits across seven seas. When the girl resisted his attempts to rape her, he deliberately starved her and had his way at her most vulnerable times as she was famished and weak. He repeatedly raped her on his altar and at his poultry farm.

In the usual sneaky way of most of the devious pastors around, he cleverly alienated the girl and blackmailed her, telling people they must not come near her. He threatened the girl with death if she ever reported the sexual assaults to anyone.

The pastor and the girl’s aunt are complicit in violating the child rights act that Nigeria is signatory to. First of all, their accusation has no verifiable evidence and even if their accusation was true, the line of action was wrong. The pastor is not an exorcist, he has no professional qualification even if their accusations were true. The child belongs to the state.

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 We condemn in its totality the actions of all the adults in the sordid drama. Beyond her personal pains and trauma, she will for long bear the isolation and victim-shaming that the culture allows.

She needs urgent medical attention as she is complaining of bleeding. She needs to undergo therapy and it would help that she sees both her aunt and the pastor brought to justice.

It is paradoxical that reports of sexual abuses by pastors is on a record high. Unfortunately, instead of guiding their followers to maintain a high moral value through shunning temptation and greed, most of them are often caught in the web of both social ills.

The manipulation of the vulnerable members with spiritual accusations of witchcraft, marine spirit, marine husband and wife, devil’s agent, etc. are all dubious ways of spiritually intimidating adherents into compliance. The greatest victims are minors of both genders and women.

We must also point out that the failure of government institutions at all levels to monitor, arrest and prosecute such offenders has made it possible for these grievous crimes to last.

Many Nigerian pastors who try to manipulate citizens in other countries have been either fined huge amounts, arrested, prosecuted or totally have their churches closed down indefinitely. In many such cases, many of them move back to Nigeria where they have a free reign because of lack of accountability. Again the failure of the system to address certain societal challenges push citizens to seek what they assume is a ‘spiritual’ solution. The pastors then have the liberty to abuse their powers.

Miss Precious’ case is heart-wrenching but it is just one out of tens of thousands. Most times, the outrage simmers almost immediately and we move to the next tragedy.

Rape is a crime no matter who commits it. We expect full justice for all involved.

Law and order exists to protect the citizens, especially the vulnerable. We commend the Anambra State Special Anti-Touting Squad Agency (SASA) for rescuing the girl, arresting the pastor and thanks to the whistle blower who tipped the agency off, leading to the arrest. That is good citizenship.

We don’t know whether Anambra State has the ‘Sexual Offenders’ Register’ like Ekiti and some other states. The name of this pastor must, if found guilty in the end, be entered in that Hall of Infamy in addition to whatever the law prescribes for such criminal acts.