“Spiritual Cleansing” turned sour as a 29-year-old pastor in charge identified as Anthony Arogunmasa raped a 19-year old lady during the process, in Ekiti state.
The pastor is currently cooling off in the police custody as they arraigned him after the heinous act which he acclaimed was an instruction from God.
While speaking to the police, the victim whose name was withheld alleged that she had been lured to the pastor’s house located in Araromi Street, Ikere-Ekiti for the so-called spiritual cleansing.
She said, “I was just meeting the pastor for the first time in my life. He approached me and told me that I needed some spiritual cleansing. He said that God instructed him to ensure that the spiritual cleansing was done for me. I fell for him because I saw people calling him pastor. He took me to his house and gave me a candle and soap and asked me to start praying. He also brought out certain objects which he said were prayer items for the spiritual cleansing. In the course of the prayers, he asked me to remove my clothing and just tie a wrapper and I obliged. It wasn’t long after that he suddenly jumped on me and eventually had carnal knowledge of me forcefully.”
The Ekiti state police public relations officer who confirmed the incident said, “We have proved that it is a clear case of rape. We have a medical proof and during our investigation, we discovered that the victim couldn’t have been a girlfriend to the suspect as he (pastor) claims. You can imagine that he doesn’t know the names of the lady, nor where she lives or any of her friends or relations and he claims to be the lady’s boyfriend. How is that possible?
“The suspect, who confessed to committing the crime, accosted the victim on September 23 at about 2000 hours and lured her to his house to perform spiritual cleansing because he perceived that the victim was under a spiritual spell. On getting to his room, the victim was threatened and put under fear of harm before being raped. Medical report confirmed that the victim was actually raped by the suspect while preliminary investigation revealed that he is a serial rapist who lures hapless women with ‘spiritual cleansing’ to have unlawful carnal knowledge of them. He will be charged to court as soon as investigation into the case in concluded.”
