If there is one thing that Mrs.
B. regrets most in her life, it is the day she walked into the Royal Heritage
Church, Mafoluku, Lagos, for the first time.
Shortly after that day, with her
teenage daughter in tow, she approached the pastor of the church, Tunde Daniel,
a man in his 50s with two wives, and sought his spiritual help on the girl’s
plan to become a model.
Mrs. B. revealed that the pastor
had told her he could make a super model out of the girl.
But Mrs. B. said the moment she
approached the pastor for help was the day she lost control of her daughter,
who is now 16 years old. For more than a year, Mrs. B said she was struggling
to get a grip of her life and win her daughter back from the hold Pastor Daniel
allegedly had on her.
From that moment on began a
relationship that allegedly snowballed into a sexual slavery for Mrs. B’s
daughter.
According to her, it got to a
point that if she gave her daughter an instruction, her obedience would depend
on whether the pastor agreed or not.
The girl would occasionally visit
the married pastor at his 8, Owolabi Street, Mafoluku, Lagos.
Mrs. B said, “My daughter
suddenly became distant and she no longer listened to me. Then, one day, she
ran away from home. I was at my shop when she ran away and her siblings were
with me in the shop.
“I got home and was expecting to
see her. I became worried after a few hours, but I still did not see her.
Neighbours also could not tell me where she was.
“It was while searching
everywhere for her that I noticed the money I kept in the house had gone.
“I tried to call Pastor Daniel
but could not reach him on the phone and I went to his house. When I got there,
I was told he was not around and for four days, my daughter was missing.
“Few days later, Pastor Daniel
brought her back home in the evening. When I asked where she had been,
she ignored me and when I asked the pastor, he shouted at me.”
Mrs. B. warned her daughter to
stay away from the pastor but all she got in response was the rebuff.
According to her, Tunde continued
to meet with the girl in secret.
Mrs. B. explained that unknown to
her, the sexual abuse her daughter allegedly suffered in the hands of the
pastor started in 2016 when the girl was still 15.
“She said that anytime she went
to school, Pastor Daniel would pick her up there and take her to a hotel.
“One day in late February, 2017,
I got a call from a hospital that said my daughter was in a critical condition.
I did not know how she ended up in the hospital. At that time, I had lost
control over her totally.
“When I got there, I was told
that she had appendicitis and that an emergency surgery must be conducted to
save her life. We were asked to look for N368,000. I called her father who was
abroad, to inform him of the case and we quickly paid the money.
“It was when I saw the surgical
scar that I became alarmed and I started petting her and told her to tell me
what was going on. That was when she said that the pastor had impregnated her
and that what I thought was the removal of her appendicitis was indeed
abortion.
“I wanted to faint. I quickly
confronted the doctors at the hospital and they told me that she was brought in
by Pastor Daniel, who prevailed on them to say it was appendicitis. They said
she had lost a fallopian tube. They said they were only concerned about saving
her life.”
The hospital in question is High
Rocks Hospital located on 8, Afariogun Street, Charity Area, Oshodi-Isolo.
However, the apprehensive Mrs.
B., who could no longer handle the matter on her own, contacted the Child
Protection Network in Oshodi, who took over the case.
The Coordinator of CPN in Isolo
and Ejigbo, Mr. Ebenezer Omejalile, explained that further investigation on the
case showed that Daniel’s ministry was reputed as one dedicated to preying on
both innocent girls and married women.
According to him, after the CPN
took over the case and it was reported at the Makinde Police Division, Oshodi,
Daniel tried to turn the case against the victim’s family and reported at the
anti-kidnapping unit of the Lagos State Police Command that Mrs. B. colluded
with some officers at the Makinde Police Division to kidnap him and force him
to part with money.
“The pastor threatened the
investigating police officer in charge of the case. He was so confident that
nothing was going to happen on the matter. I realised that it was necessary for
the Commissioner of Police to hear about the matter, so I wrote a petition to
the CP on the matter.
“The woman called him ‘father in
the Lord’ and trusted him with her daughter. Most shocking was the part that
the girl had lost a fallopian tube. When we interrogated the girl further, we
realised that the pastor had given her some drugs to abort the pregnancy, which
led to the complications.”
Omejalile said his petition to
the Lagos CP was to explain why the case was not a kidnap case as claimed by
Daniel, but one that bordered on gross sexual abuse and child endangerment.
Meanwhile, to prevent further
contact between the girl and Daniel, the girl’s family took her away to the
South-East to stay with her grandmother.
During her stay in their
hometown, it was learnt that the family concluded that the pastor might
have
put the girl under a spell.
“She kept repeating that she
wanted to have sexual intercourse with Pastor Daniel. We did our best to break
her from the curse,” a family member said on condition of anonymity.
They did not divulge further
steps taken to break her free from the purported spell.
However, after months on the
case, Omejalile’s petition to the Lagos CP finally yielded results on Tuesday,
November 7. Daniel, who had been walking the streets as a free man since the
case was reported at the Makinde Police Division, was invited at the Gender
Unit of the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters. He was subsequently
detained as investigation and interrogation went on.
At the police headquarters, the
girl, who was brought back from the East to give a statement, made more
startling revelations.
Omejalile, who was present at the
time said, “The girl said that anytime they had sex, he always recorded it.
This is why we are worried at this point because we do not want such videos
finding their way to the public. The girl said that he had a box in his room
where he kept videos from different sexual encounters. The police said they
would go and search his room soon.”
He explained that when they went
to invite the pastor in company with policemen from the command headquarters,
the girl was the one used as a bait.
Omejilale said, “We told her to
put the phone on speaker and when the girl called him, he said he would like to
see her and that he missed her. The girl said she could not come to his house
but could meet him at work.
“The pastor works as a software
engineer in a company at Oshodi. As soon as the girl got to his office, the
pastor’s colleagues started greeting her as ‘Pastor Daniel’s daughter’. It was
clear they were familiar with her. He was then informed that he was wanted at
the police headquarters. He thought he could escape by placing a call to the
policemen at the anti-kidnapping unit, whom he had reported to earlier. But he
was told that he was being invited at the police headquarters by higher
authority.”
It was learnt that while
being questioned at the police headquarters, the girl revealed that Daniel took
her on a flight to Abuja at a point.
Mrs. B was asked why she was not
aware of all these and how her daughter could embark on such long journeys
without her knowledge, but the distraught mother said it was part of the
reasons why she said she lost control of her daughter.
The pastor is still being
detained by the police.
Meanwhile, the CPN has said once
the prosecution of Daniel was underway, it would begin efforts in ensuring that
the doctor at High Rocks Hospital, who carried out the abortion was
investigated.
The head of the hospital, Dr.
Femi Oloyede, an associate professor explained that the pastor brought the girl
to his facility, claiming to be her guardian.
He said, “The man (Daniel)
brought in the girl with ectopic pregnancy (development of foetus in fallopian
tube) and we saved her. He said the girl was impregnated by her boyfriend. Our
records are there to show what she was treated for. Who impregnated her was not
the hospital’s concern. I was summoned when she was brought in and noticed she
was in a very bad shape. She had to be resuscitated. I then said there was
nothing we could do if her parents were not present even if he was the guardian
as he claimed.
“The pastor then contacted the
mother and she came in. We told her what was wrong with her daughter
immediately. When we told them to make a deposit so we conduct an urgent
surgery, they declined saying they were taking her to their regular hospital.
“I wrote them a referral and they
left. They later came back in the evening when the girl’s situation had
worsened. They had to beg me to come from home to attend to her. We did
the operation and she took about three pints of blood within a space of three
hours. She was bleeding inside. She was even on admission for some days after
the surgery. If anything was ever in doubt, a responsible parent would have
asked.”
Oloyede said the age of the
pregnancy could not be immediately determined but said he believed it must have
been about six weeks old.
He also said there was no
evidence that there had been an attempt to abort the pregnancy but that the
victim’s fallopian tube ruptured as a result of the ectopic pregnancy.
The doctor explained that he
would be happy to assist the police in their investigation.
The spokesperson for the Lagos
State Police Command, Mr. Olarinde Famous-Cole, who confirmed that Daniel was
still in custody and being quizzed, said the doctor would be invited.
He said, “The investigation will definitely
involve the hospital. The pastor has made some confessional statements.
“Investigation is ongoing to
determine where and when each of the alleged acts took place.Investigators
would be conducting a search on the house of the pastor also.”
Because of the sensitivity of
this case, Saturday PUNCH decided to keep the family anonymous.
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That's Yoruba pastors for you. Tithes and offering pastors. Wolves in shepherd's clothing. That's how my friends sister was impregnated by a Yoruba pastor despite having his wife. I'm sure they also use charms
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