Adeleye Kunle Reports.
David Anifowose, the General Overseer of the Whole Bible Believer Church in Ondo, and four of his assistants have been charged with kidnapping in an Akure Magistrates’ Court, TrackNews Reports.
Josiah Peter, 49, Stephen Olawole, 51, Blessing John, 60, and Gbenga Ayembo Gbenga, 56, were also docked with Anifowose.
Last week, security personnel and youths forcibly removed 77 people, including 26 children, from the church’s basement.
They had been fasting and praying in the church basement in preparation for Jesus Christ’s second coming in September of this year.
Many of the children, some of whom were undergraduate students at various universities, had dropped out to stay in the basement.
Married women also abandoned their husbands to attend church.
The Pastors were charged with ten counts of kidnapping and unlawful harboring.
They entered not guilty pleas to the charges.
Augustine Omhenimhen, a police prosecutor, told the court that the pastors unlawfully imprisoned Elizabeth Reuben’s children and barred their parents from seeing them.
Omhenimhen stated that the accused also kidnapped, housed, and barred access to Patrick Olaniyan’s wife and children.
He claimed that the pastors illegally deprived church members of their freedom against their will, as well as placing them in a dehumanizing environment that made them susceptible to diseases.
The accused were also accused of assaulting, resisting, and willfully obstructing Inspector Rotimi Ogunji, who was on duty at the church.
Other charges included the unlawful removal of underage girls from the protection of their parents.
