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Rev. Emeka King ruined my family, Ann’s dad laments
Aug. 5, 2006
Adesina Aiyekoti, Chris Anucha, Ola Agbaje, Juliana Francis, Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye and Lukmon Olabiyi
www.sunnewsonline.com
Grief-stricken father of Ann Uzoh, the girl who died from burns allegedly inflicted by Rev Kingsley Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, the embattled leader of the Christian Praying Assembly (CPA) in Lagos, Pa Raphael Uzoh, has recounted how his daughter was brainwashed and made to disown the family through her liaison with the self-styled ‘Jesus of our time,’ with whom she was alleged to be in a rollicking love affair.
The heart-rending story came as police bid to arraign Ezeugo and his accomplices for a fresh charge of murder failed yesterday.
Speaking to Daily Sun, Pa Uzoh, disclosed that Ann turned her back on the family in 1999 when she became a founding member of CPA. Going down memory lane, the bereaved father said that he had known Rev. Ezeugo (alias Reverend King) since the early 90s. According to him, his family members and King were members of the All Christian Practical Praying Band in Anambra State.
“He (Ezeugo) was a visioner in the church. He later travelled to Brazil and came back to the country. On getting back, he called Ann in 1999 that he wanted to start a church. That was how my daughter became a founding member of the church. She was in the church on the 18th of May, 1999 for the launching. That was to be the beginning of our sorrows as Ann finally stopped coming home in December 1999,” Uzoh said.
He continued: “I thought it was a joke but I got very worried when she showed signs of not coming back.”
Uzoh, who alleged conjugal relationship between Ann and Ezeugo said he was embarrassed by reports and questions from people as to whether or not he had married his daughter off to the pastor.
“Personally, I had no grouse with King marrying her if he had taken the right steps. I told Ann that if her pastor wanted to marry her, then he should come to me and make his intentions known. She refused to listen to me despite all the suitors that were asking for her hand in marriage.”
Ann, 30, who had a Higher National Diploma in Accounting from the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu, was said to have denied her father when he went to pay her a visit in the church.
Uzoh said: “People from my village came to meet me that if I had given my daughter in marriage I should tell them. This made me summon courage to visit her in the church.
On getting there, I told the security guard that I wanted to see Ann Uzoh but he told me there was nobody like that. I later saw Ann approaching the gate, so, I told the guard that my daughter was coming toward us. When she heard me call her my daughter, she denied me immediately. ‘I am not your daughter. My name is now Ann King’, she said. I turned my back and went home in tears.”
Uzoh further claimed that his attempts to meet King met a brick wall as he was beaten mercilessly by the militia of the church.
“You ask me if I ever made attempt to see King? They gave me the beating of my life when I told them that I wanted to see him. I was told that King was not someone I could see. My daughter did not pity me when she saw the ill-treatment I got from members of the church. She never came home until she died. I have three of them and she was my first child,” he said.
In another encounter, Ann’s younger brother, Ifeanyi Uzoh said that despite the fact that his sister was King’s mistress, he was the one feeding her.
Said he: “Since she left home, she had been coming to my shop at Ilasa to collect money. What surprised me was that she was always asking me for huge sums of money ranging from N50,000 to N100,000. When I asked what the money was for, she said King asked her to pay fine for various offences. The fine for fornication was from N50,000 above. Lying went for N15,000 etc. I could not believe my ears but I just had to give her the money because she was my blood.”
Ifeanyi further said that he saw Ann two days before she was burnt. He said: “I saw her looking very skinny. She had marks of severe beating all over her body and her eyes were red. I was not really surprised about that because she had always had marks on her body since she started going to that church. She was always fighting me for discouraging her from attending the church When I asked her why she was looking so thin, she rebuffed me and enjoined me to become a member of the church. She even said she had become a minister in the church. Our mother is in the village taking care of her aged parents and Ann’s death is a big calamity to us.”
The late Ann’s auntie, Ebere Ugbor, who claimed to have nurtured her to adulthood said she saw her two years ago, looking the opposite of the girl she brought up.
She said: “I trained Ann and her younger ones till they became adults. When she came to Lagos to do her Industrial Attachment at a cosmetics company, I saw her sharing pamphlets of the church. I did not see her again until two years ago, at my younger brother’s wedding. She was the shadow of her old self. I did not see her again until I saw her badly burnt corpse.”
Meanwhile, Chiejina Olisa, the personal assistant to Ezeugo who escaped death narrowly, revealed yesterday that the deceased was a rival to Kelechi, the lady that allegedly provided the petrol that was used to burn the late girl.
He said: “Ann and Kelechi were King’s mistresses so they never saw eye to eye. When King sentenced six of us to death by burning with ‘blessed fuel’ for fornicating and witchcraft, he asked all of us to kneel down. Kelechi first brought a bowl of fuel, which was sprinkled on us. King, however, asked Kelechi to get more because the fuel was blessed. He poured the fuel on us as if we were having our bath. I jumped the fence because I was near the gate. Ann could not get away because she was kneeling down directly before King.”
Meanwhile, the police yesterday failed in a bid to slam murder charge against embattled Ezeugo and Kelechi Chikere and Donatus Chiazor as a Yaba Chief Magistrate Court struck out the charge for lack of jurisdiction.
The Chief Magistrate, Mrs Adesola Ikpati, declined to entertain the request brought by the State Commissioner of Police, through Mr O. A. Ochegwu, a Superintendent of Police, following a preliminary objection raised by the lead counsel to the accused persons, Mr Mike Okoye.
Okoye had argued that it was wrong for the police to file the charge before the same court, which was already hearing a case of alleged attempted murder against them.
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