Prophet Chinoso Aniebo of the Elijah Faith Assembly, Ajao Estate, Lagos, is on the horns of a dilemma. A beautiful, young lady in her late 20s, Goodness Adugba, an acclaimed worker in the church, has accused him of rape and threat to her life.
Adugba, who has laid the claim bare before Police authorities, narrated to OrijoReporters how her life has become a sham following an alleged mid-day intrusion into her room in a flat she shared with her parent, at No 7, Abayomi Street, Egan, Igando, Lagos, where she said the clergyman raped her.
But Prophet Aniebo, when contacted, said the lady was out of her mind as, according to him, “she is a mad girl.”
Narrating her ordeal, Goodness told our reporter that her trouble started shortly after she joined the congregation in 2010, following an invitation through a pamphlet given to her by a passer-by who is a member of the church, somewhere around Isolo, Lagos.
According to her, the episode started when she joined other congregants for a one-on-one counseling with the young, ebullient Pastor during a youth programme at a Lagos camp where the latter proposed to marry her.
“Prophet Chinoso Aniebo is owner of Elijah Faith Assembly and I am a member and a worker in the church since 2010. In 2012, youths in the church had a programme and we went to Success Camp where he, (the Pastor), was having one on one counseling with us. When it reached my turn, he asked me to marry him and I turned him down,” Goodness said.
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Not ready to give in easily, Goodness said the Pastor persisted in making amorous advances to her, which she consistently rebuffed until 2014 when the “Man of God” traced her to her abode one afternoon and had intercourse with her without her consent.
“I was alone in the flat as my parents had gone to work. At about 12 noon, the Prophet suddenly emerged in my room and was advancing towards me. I screamed but my voice was embellished by the noisy sound of the electricity generating set that was put on. When he touched me, I became powerless and he had sex with me and warned me never to divulge what happened to anybody or I pay with my life,” she further disclosed.
Goodness alleged that the diabolic substance that the Prophet used on her has left her in a word of amorous longings as she always has ecstatic feelings of romance around her private part at all times since the encounter.
“Since that time I have been complaining about this problem. I have sought several medical solution to no avail. I had to come back to the Prophet to deliver me but surprisingly, he ordered his security aides to beat me up and send me out of the church premises.”
The last straw was when the Prophet allegedly visited her in the house again this year, and forcefully had his way with her for the second time.
“This man kept making further advances to me and at a point; I stopped worshiping in the church. But in February this year, he came again and had intercourse with me without my consent. He warned again that I must not tell anybody so that I don’t tarnish the image of the church. He also told me that he is the only one that can cure me of what he has placed on me,” Goodness said.
The last comment, according to her, spurred her to report the case at Area M Police Station, after which she moved the case to the Human Right Section of the Police Lagos State Command, and now the Special Squad Section of the State Command where she claimed the case is dragging.
But reacting, Prophet Aniebo described Goodness’ assertions as figments of her own imaginations.
“There was a mad girl, who claimed someone was having sex with her in her dreams. She lodged a report at the Police Station and her parents came in to say she was out of her mind. So, if you want to hear anything about the case, go to the police,” the clergyman said in a telephone conversation.
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In another tacit reaction in an sms message which came, ostensibly as an afterthought, moments later, Prophet Aniebo wrote: “Dear Mr
Gboyega Adeoye, thanks for your message. Pls be well guided or be set to face legal action for any unsubstantiated defamatory publication. Thanks sir.”
However, findings revealed that Prophet Aniebo and members of his Elijah Faith Assembly had made unsubstantiated claims in the past. A national publication once reported that during the church’s regular deliverance programme, “Rhema water programme” in December 2, 2015, a woman, who identified herself as Cassandra, an indigene of Ihiala in Anambra State, gave birth to a tortoise and vomited padlock.
By Gboyega Adeoye
