National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has arrested a 48-year-old pastor with the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM), Gwaripa branch, Abuja for alleged rape, sexual exploitation and impregnation of a 16-year-old orphan (name withheld).
The suspect, David Onyekachuku, a native of Nsukka, Enugu State, was said to have volunteered to provide shelter and also conduct spiritual deliverance on the girl after she was accused of witchcraft.
Mr Onyekachuku allegedly took advantage of the situation to sexually exploit the girl.
The victim, a Junior Secondary School student of a public school in Abuja, had dropped out of school and was in dire need of accommodation shortly after she lost parents in 2018.
The said MFM pastor, whose wife died not long ago, was at the time a neighbour to his victim’s parents in Karmo community, a suburb of Abuja.
The victim told NAPTIP that after the first year of living with the pastor, he began to make love advances toward her which she resisted.
She said the first time the cleric violated her was in March 2019 on her birthday.
The girl said the preacher had taken her and his daughter out on birthday celebration to some relaxation centres in Abuja.
That evening, she continued, after the pastor’s daughter had gone to bed, he pounced on her, ignoring all pleas for mercy.
The clergyman was said to have repeatedly violated her until she became pregnant.
On interrogation, Onyekachuku attributed the act to the “work of the devil”.
Director General of NAPTIP, Julie Okah-Donli, said she had ordered the sensitisation of people against sexual assaults.
Mrs Okah-Donli said the MFM pastor would be prosecuted in order to get justice for the victim.
