BY AGNES NWORIE, ABAKALIKI
A man, said to be about 60 years of age, Ezekiel Nweke, and the pastor in-charge-of Yahweh Kingdom Community World Wide, at Ndiechi Onuebonyi Village, Obubra Junction, Igbeagu Community, Izzi LGA, Ebonyi State, has been chased away by the indigenes of the area for allegedly carrying out some “dangerous” ritual sacrifices.
The people of Ndiechi Onuebonyi recently, discovered that the man they had embraced and accommodated for 11 years as a pastor was allegely a full-fledged native doctor, immersed in all sorts of fetish and occult practices
The suspect is currently cooling his feet in police detention facilities, Iboko having been rescued from mob action following allegation of indulgence in ritual or fetish practices.
A resident of the area, Christopher Igube, during an interview with The Point Correspondent in Abakaliki, said that his wife woke up early morning only to notice Pastor Nweke sprinkling some concoction on a dead goat, which aroused her suspicion and that of other neighbours.
When his attention was drawn to it, he accosted the Pastor only to notice on closer inspection that it was actually his own goat that was slaughtered for the ritual, without his knowledge and consent.
Upon interrogation, the Pastor was allegedly incoherent in his explanation.
Their altercation attracted other neighbours who joined in the fray.
Eventually, the crowd that gathered went into the Pastor’s apartment, only to discover many fetish objects like carved doll, female undies, condoms and many pictures of people including some of their known neighbours lying before his shrine with some unprintable inscriptions.
This discovery incensed the crowd who wasted no time in unleashing a mob action on him.
The Police from Iboko division was eventually attracted to the scene and they rescued and detained him, to avert his being lynched.
The crowd however vented their spleen on his household properties which were promptly brought out in the open compound and burnt, including furniture, clothing, kitchen items, electronics and electrical materials as well as motorcycle.
One of his neighbours, whose picture was also found in the shrine, Chima Igele, happens to be the Chairman of Eguegbe Boys Progressive Union, who reportedly rented the building out to the said Pastor.
Our reporter gathered that the EBPU had been at a long drawn battle with the Pastor over his refusal to honour his rental obligations in the past three years.
Igele said that the union took him to court and obtained a quit notice which was duly served on him but he remained adamant, claiming that the building now belonged to him.
Efforts by the union to enforce the court order for him to pay them the outstanding rent arrears of N250, 000.00 met stiff resistance until the goat incident that exposed the dark side of the acclaimed “man of God”
He said the people around had been wary of the sinister mode of the pastor’s operation which they attributed to series of accidents occurring within the axis of Obubara Junction.
They described his present ordeal as good riddance to a bad rubbish as they also hoped that justice would be served including helping to recover the rent arrears of N250, 000.00
Another eye witness and resident of the area, Sylvester Nwokpuru claimed that, out of magnanimity, the pastor upon his arrival in the area, some years ago, was freely shown a big bungalow to be used as church by a particular family.
Unknown to the donors, the accused person was only carrying out his fetish activities in the guise of running a church until recently when people became curious on why they were experiencing many strange things ranging from mysterious deaths, incessant road crashes within the location of the church, and sudden disappearances of female under wears, among others.
Nwokpuru said, “As we were still wondering why series of unexplainable calamities were befalling our village, suddenly, we began to notice that Nweke did perform some dangerous sacrifice secretly.
“And our people, having observed keenly the suspicious evil acts, decided to keep surveillance on the man’s activities until the fateful day, when our people woke in the morning and found another irritating sight involving already killed goat which was kept at the entrance of the so called church premises.”
Nwokpuru further disclosed that the pastor was summoned by some persons after the sacrifice of goat was discovered, but surprisingly upon the confrontation, the man flared up and challenged the persons on why they would poke nose into his affairs.
Along the line, Nweke received more than he bargained for as the people angrily invaded the church and found out other unimaginable quantity of fetish items and plenty charms at the altar and other parts of the said church building.
However, The Point Correspondent, during a visit to the scene, observed enormous charms and other spiritual items and some unknown persons’ pictures including wooden baton with Ebonyi State governor’s name boldly written on it.
The pastor, turned herbalist Nweke was paraded by the youths of the area amidst torture round the community before the Police intervened and took him into custody.
