The Ondo State Government and the police are still looking for answers to issues brought up by the activities of an Ondo church whose members, mostly children and youths, have refused to reunite with their families after they were rescued from the basement of the church, PETER DADA writes
A few weeks ago, reports concerning 77 members of the Whole Bible Believer Church, better known as “Ondo Church,” who were supposedly camped in the church’s basement, flooded both traditional and social media.
The victims were allegedly held in the church’s underground apartment in the Valentino neighbourhood of Ondo town, Ondo State, so they wouldn’t interact with anyone who wasn’t a member, regardless of their relationship to them.
Prior to their rescue by the men of the Ondo State Police Command, the victims, who included 23 children and 54 adults, including teenagers, males, and females, were said to have abandoned their parents, husbands, and wives to follow the teaching of their pastor, who was said to have prophesied to them that Jesus Christ would be coming in September this year, and that they should do nothing but wait for the Lord in the church.
Apart from keeping the members under his care in a confined apartment of the church for over six months, the pastor, Anifowose David, who alongside his assistant, Pastor Peter Josiah, was alleged to have indoctrinated the victims by allegedly misinterpreting some parts of the bible to them, to abstain from their families who are not church members. The pastors have been charged to court.
Interestingly, most of the adherents of the church were not illiterates. The members include, secondary students, varsity students, university graduates, school teachers, and other professionals, who allegedly abandoned their various enterprises to dwell inside the church, which they described as their heavenly meeting point to wait for the second coming of Jesus.
During their parade at State Police Command Headquarter, Akure, the victims did not show any remorse or any sign of wrongdoing. They even justified their actions, saying they had disowned their family members so as not to be profanely polluted.
Sequel to the children’s parade on Saturday, there was a series of drama after the police directed that the children should follow their parents back home.
According to a source, a lady slapped her mother, who was trying to drag her to follow her home as she insisted that she would not leave the police station if the pastor was not released. It was gathered that some of them had been fasting and refusing to eat. It was also learnt that some of them were even threatening to sue the Nigeria Police Force for ‘unlawfully’ arresting and detaining their spiritual father.
One of the victims, who identified herself as Priscilla, explained that she decided to stay away from home and abandoned her studies in the third year to obey and follow the instructions of her father in the lord.
“My parents have dragged the pastors to court over the issue, and we are still in court. I am following the doctrine of the church by following the dictate of my father’s in the Lord to make heaven.” I decided to defer my admission to concentrate on the court case instituted by my parents against the pastors and the church because I am losing concentration and since they have stopped paying my school fees,” Priscilla said.
Another adherent, Olasunkanmi Olafisoye, boastfully stated, “After we left our former church, I prayed to God that I wanted to move closer to Him. So, when I joined this church, I discovered that our previous church was not teaching what the Bible says. My parents don’t have a stable church, and I told them I couldn’t follow them. When they wanted to stop me from going to my church, I had to move out of the house and stay on my own, “the adherent boastfully stated.”
On why she disowned her biological parents, the Obafemi Awolowo University graduate, who did not work after graduation following the alleged instructions of the pastors, quoted Ephesians Chapter 6 of the King James Bible Version, saying “The bible says’ obey your parents in the Lord’, not outside the Lord. You can disobey your parents when they are leading someone against the will of God. I’m always with my bible and my parents are always against the will of God, “she stated.
A distraught parent, Mrs Kehinde Oluwaferanmi, whose four children had allegedly been kept in the controversial church, urged the government and other stakeholders to help her return her children home as they had deserted the house for the church.
The woman said, “My four children have abandoned home for the church. Even my last child, a 16-year-old who, as a result of her brilliance, was given a scholarship from SS1 to SS3, has withdrawn herself from school to stay in the church. We had earlier sued the church, and the court fined the pastor a sum of N100,000. The court also ordered my other three graduates in the church to go back home and obey my instructions, but they refused. “
Worthy of note is that the development has scattered many affected families as some of them said they had not set their eyes on their members who had been kept away from them in the confines of the church and all efforts to see them were being rebuffed by the leadership of the church.
“Anytime we went there to see our children, they would not allow you to enter into the church. They would just call the person you are looking for outside. After your discussion with the person, the person will go back into the church. They behave like an occult group, there is something secret going on in the church that the government should look into,” a parent told our correspondent.
Explaining the development, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mrs. Funmilayo Odunlami, said the victims were camped in the church with the instruction that none of them must go out and that they should expect the second coming of Jesus Christ at any moment.
Odunlami said, “We had a case of suspected abduction. A parent walked up to a police station and said some of her children left home, but she knew where they were. Policemen followed her to the place, and they found out that it was a church. An attempt to talk to the pastor and invite him over proved abortive, and the members who were around turned violent and attacked the policemen who were there.
However, at the end of the day, “we realised that the church had been keeping the members in an underground room. What we heard was that the assistant pastor, Josiah, claimed the rapture was going to take place by April, but later said it had been changed to September. So, he encouraged most of them to stay behind. He also brainwashed the children to obey only their parents in the Lord. Aside from that, we also realised that some of these children left home to be in the church in January. Some even left school for that purpose.”
On the contrary, the Assistant Pastor of the church, Josiah Peter, a Ghanaian who allegedly introduced the new doctrines to the church after the demise of the founder of the church, denied all the allegations but said they were only following God’s instructions and directives.
He explained, “There are some things that are not right in the bible that we want to correct. It is against our doctrine to allow women to preach in the church or anywhere. Again, we don’t believe in the Holy Trinity. This is incorrect, and all of these contradict our beliefs, as we have evidence but we believe in the rapture and it is coming soon.”
“I didn’t tell them the rapture would come in September.” These are all lies; I never preached anywhere to tell them that the rapture was going to take place in April or September. I only told them that the rapture is close and prophesy has shown that the rapture is close but never mentioned the year or date. Children should honour their parents in the Lord. It is in the book of Ephesians, Chapter 6 verse 1.”
Although, some of the rescued members had reunited with their families, many refused to go back home to meet their people.
A lecturer at the Department of Sociology, University of Ibadan, Dr Tade Oludayo said the matter might be as a result of the indoctrination of the church, taking advantage of the current economic situation of the country.
He said, “They are captive minds. People are brainwashed with the compounding socio-economic woes in the country. This is not with Christendom alone. We have seen people locked up in so-called Muslim spaces. The fundamental point is that religion is being used to manipulate people today more than ever before. Check their demographics; they are likely to be poor people.”
A cleric, Pastor Matthew Asoloye said, “For me, I don’t want to believe that anybody is hypnotised because we didn’t read it that the said pastors are living in affluence as a result of camping them (the victims). We learnt that they even fed them. I believe it is a matter of scripture misinterpretation somewhere. We shall continue to pray to God to open the eyes of everybody to know the truth.”
The Commissioner for Women Affairs in the state, Mrs Julianna Osadahun, said the state government would be employing legal means towards rehabilitating the victims
“From the ministry, we must do family tracing. We must get some background information on how these children became so hypnotised and got indoctrinated. On those that will be needing rehabilitation, we will have to work legally to take custody of those ones,” the commissioner stated. ,,
