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How I joined Rev. Emeka King’s church to save my daughter
More articles on this topic: Christian Praying Asssembly…Says father of late Ann Uzoh
Family members of Ann Uzoh, the dead victim of the alleged attack by Reverend Chukwuemeka Kingsley Ezeuko a.k.a. Rev. King, on some members of his church, have threatened to sue the Nigeria Police over the shoddy manner the case was being investigated. Rev. King of the Lagos-based Christian Praying Assembly (CPA) was reported to have set ablaze about seven members of his congregation recently. Among the victims was Ann who died in hospital from severe burns. The Pastor is now being held for murder.
The deceased’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Raphael Uzoh, said in Lagos at the weekend that they were planning to begin a legal action against the State Police Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner of Police, State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Mr. Yinka Balogun and head of Homicide Section, Mr. Johnson Adeniken (CSP), for allegedly treating the matter with levity. They alleged that there was a plan by the police authorities through the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) to sweep the matter under the carpet. They noted that the police had kept the family in the dark in the course of their investigation. The parents wondered why the detectives detailed to investigate the matter obtained two different statements from the deceased, Miss Uzoh, while she was still on the sick bed before her death.
They also queried why the police attempted to arraign Rev. King and his associates before a Magistrate Court when they were aware that the court lacked jurisdiction over murder cases. The bereaved family, speaking through their lawyer, Mr. Allens Agbaka, complained in a chat with the Mid-week Tribune that the investigating police officer also forgot the photographs of the victims at home when coming to the court. The legal practitioner however stated that he disagreed with the explanations of the investigating police officer that he forgot the photographs of the victims at home. He stressed that the photographs form part of the evidence against the suspects and should be inside the case file, adding that the statement of the IPO claiming that he forgot such an important thing at home suggested that he had compromised his position as far as the case was concerned because his argument was not tenable in law.
The lawyer expressed dissatisfaction with the failure of the same policeman not to have obtained the statements of one Mr. Kosi, whom he pointed out as one of Rev King’s victims and who was seriously sick in the hospital. Mr. Agbaka maintained that up till last Thursday when the case was also taken to court for the second time, the police authorities as well as the investigating police officer were yet to know the hospital where Mr Kosi was receiving treatment on the severe burns suffered after he was allegedly set ablaze by the controversial Pastor. The lawyer further accused the police of not making any effort to ask for the hospital.
The younger brother of the deceased, Mr. Ifeanyi Uzoh, frowned at the decision of the investigating police officer to plant himself at the hospital where late Miss Uzoh was admitted, accusing him of behaving like an agent provocateur because of the refusal of the policeman to allow Ann’s relations access to the lady on her hospital bed. “The fourth reason why we are filing a civil action against the police authorities along with the IPO is that the police sergeant forced the lady to make two statements against her wish. The first statement made by the deceased was highly implicating and he took another witness to her in the hospital and tried to convince Ann to make an additional statement”, the Uzoh’s lawyer said.
The legal practitioner added, however, that no responsible and even reasonable police officer will remove from the case file a photograph showing the victims that were almost dead at the various hospitals. “And above all, the Homicide Department of the Lagos State Criminal Investigation Department has not, up till this moment made any conscious attempt to even bother to get the statements of the parents of the deceased. They ought to have quizzed Ann’s parents on how she left home. This would have helped them to know whether she was abducted by the self-styled Rev. King,” he declared.
The lawyer, who gave the names of other victims as: Chiejina Olisa, Jessica Nwene, Chizoba Onuora and Kosi Ezenwankwo, said that it was very unfortunate that the police investigating team was yet to ask the parents of the deceased how she found her way into the suspect’s church at Ajao Estate, Lagos. He pointed out that the police investigating team at the S.C.I.D. Panti Yaba Lagos took the accused Pastor to court for an attempted murder rather than charging him with murder. Mr. Agbaka stated that under the law, an accused person can only be taken to court after the conclusion of investigation because it is the facts gathered from investigation that are presented at the court and that would link the accused person with the commission of a crime where there is a clear evidence before the police.
“But the police have failed to do what is constitutionally expected of them in the case in question, that was one of the reasons the case was struck out because there was no credible evidence before the honourable court to prosecute the offenders,” he pointed out. Meanwhile, the deceased, Miss Uzoh, was said to have absconded from her parents’ house in the Eastern part of the country around December 1999 and had since been co-habiting with the controversial pastor until she was allegedly sprinkled with fuel and ignited with fire by him which eventually terminated her life last Thursday.
The decision of Miss Uzoh, a Higher National Diploma graduate in Accountancy from the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu State, to pack out of her parents’ house at the period without telling anybody, was said to have shocked everyone. According to the father of the deceased, during a chat with Mid-week Tribune, when he could no longer withstand the pressure being mounted on him by his daughter’s suitors who had sought her hands in marriage, shortly before she eloped with Rev King, he began the search for her until he was informed by some concerned family members that she had been sighted at the Christian Prayer Assembly belonging to the suspect.
“To my surprise, when I got there, based on the instruction of Rev. King to my daughter, I was told by some insiders that my daughter had changed her name to Ann King. And she told me that I was not her father, that she had started bearing Ann King,” said Mr. Rapheal Uzoh. He stated that despite this strange behaviour by his daughter and her unusual and sudden rudeness to him, he did not relent in trying to re-assure her that she was still welcome at home if she could still change her mind and come to her senses. Rather, he expressed regrets that his late daughter who was his first child remained adamant and unrepentant.
However, the bereaved father, in tears, noted that sometime on Saturday, July 22, 2006 at the church’s premises, the accused person was said to have called the deceased and some other five members of the church into his residence and levelled some accusations against the worshippers who saw him as a little god. Mr Uzor, now left with two children, said he learnt that once anyone was summoned by the ‘pastor’, that person, out of fear, must kneel down before the pastor, no matter how old he or she might be. “There and then, the suspect was said to have passed death sentence on the girls for perceived fornication and witchcraft. He ordered for fuel and it was brought to him by one Kelechi because the first gallon of fuel brought by the accused person to sprinkle on the unfortunate worshippers was not enough,” he recalled.
Mr. Uzoh, 56, however, pointed out those who knelt at the centre where the petrol sprinkled on them poured, including his daughter, were the ones seriously affected by the fire ignited by Pastor King. He stated that the bone of contention between his daughter and a co-suspect, Miss Kelechi, was that the two young women were rivals, fighting over who should marry the pastor.
“Though I had put my feet down that on no account would my daughter marry the pastor except he would come forward to formally seek Ann’s hands in marriage from my family, Ann never came home since 1999 and you cannot see Pastor King unless you go to his church. Also, you can not be allowed to go near him and neither can you be allowed to touch him, or else his disciples will beat the daylight out of you,” said Ann’s father. He however confessed that after several unsuccessful visits to the church to see Rev. King so that he could plead with him to release his daughter to him, without success, he had no other choice than to join the church as a pre-condition for Ann to be released to him.
“In fact, I am a member of the C.P.A. and I do tie the lace of the pastor’s shoes. Despite being a member of the church, whenever I went there to worship with them, she wasn’t allowed to see me until she must have finished with her activities both as a minister and choir member because she was one of the mistresses of Pastor King.” In a chat with the younger brother of the deceased, Mr. Ifeanyi Uzoh, he said he refused to be convinced by his late elder sister to join the church in spite of appeals and cohesion by her. He noted that his elder sister was always in the habit of coming to take money from him whenever she was broke. “Our appeals to her to return home always fell on deaf ears. But she only realised she had a brother when she had financial constraints and for the purpose of developing Pastor King’s church. I always sympathised with her whenever I saw lacerations on her body because she was being beaten mercilessly by her so-called live-in lover, Rev. King”, said Ifeanyi.
He stated that his advice to his elder sister to leave the church and retrace her steps met with rebuff, adding that rather than listen to wise counsel, his late sister would resort to fighting with him. The young man, who sells and repairs industrial generating sets, said “her face was always bruised, she was always lean and looking as if she was feeling uncomfortable because of an unexplained internal problems.” The family’s lawyer, Mr. Agbaka has however said that they are filing another civil action against Rev. King and registered trustees of the church for the unlawful killing of Ann Uzoh by pouring petrol on her and setting her ablaze.
“Then secondly, we have written a strongly-worded petition to the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, as well as the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Adedayo S. Adeoye in charge of Zone II, Lagos and Mr. Yinka Balogun, a Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the Lagos State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Yaba, Lagos informing them that the investigating police team has compromised on this issue.
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