
A pastor at the United Methodist
Church, Mafoluku, in the Oshodi area of Lagos was chased away by church
members after allegedly impregnating his housemaid.
Investigations
revealed that Pastor, Barkuma Andrew, was stopped from leading the
church seven months ago when the housemaid, who was also a member of the
church, Grace, had complications after aborting the pregnancy.
It was gathered that
the members had petitioned the Central Conference of the church in
Taraba State to investigate the alleged accusation.
After
no action was taken to probe the pastor, the church members decided to
deal with him. At 10 am on Sunday, members of the church showed up for
Sunday service only to see that Andrew and some “unknown” people had
commenced the service.
This angered the
congregation which proceeded to chase out Andrew and his group from the
church. Men from the Makinde Police Division, including the DPO, were
said to have intervened after the incident was reported at the station.A
member of the church and a former secretary to Andrew, Moses Sherima,
said that the pastor sent his wife to her village after he impregnated
Grace. He said:
“My room is opposite pastor’s
apartment and I was his secretary. When he started dating that girl
(Grace), I called his wife’s cousin, Favour, on the matter. She said
Grace used to tell her whenever the pastor had sex with her.
“At
a point, I had to move upstairs when I could no longer bear it. The day
that abortion happened, I was sleeping inside my room when I heard
Grace screaming. I rushed there and saw blood coming out from her
private parts. When the wife came back from one of her numerous
journeys, he told her to send Favour away.”
Another church
member, John Komboroh, said the church was embarrassed by Andrew’s
conduct, adding that they were tired of his leadership.He said:
“The
petition of adultery against the pastor had been sent to the bishop at
the Central Conference. He came here, but did not do anything about it.
That was why we wrote to the main body, the Southern Conference to give
us another pastor. His (Andrew’s) action is an embarrassment to us. We
don’t want him again.”
The new pastor of the church, Reverend James Sunday, said,:
“We
were about to start our service this morning when we met the old pastor
and some unknown people already holding the service. I calmed down my
people to avoid chaos.”
Another resident and a
female member, who identified herself only as Blessing, said the pastor
had once made sexual advances to her.
“My husband
is not always at home. The pastor would call me in the night and asked
if I had slept. One day he entered my room and gave me a soft slap on my
back. I had only the wrapper on me. “I was surprised and told my
neighbours.”
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